At a time when several global digital streaming companies are investing heavily to add more local-language content for the Indian audience, a domestic over-the-top (OTT) major is betting on English shows to grab eyeballs.
SonyLIV, the on-demand video platform owned by Sony Pictures Networks, locked a multi-year strategic content deal with American entertainment giant Lionsgate last week. Under the partnership, some of Lionsgate’s content will be available on SonyLIV.
“The partnership came at a time when English was a relatively weaker part in their (SonyLIV’s) content offering,” Rohit Jain, managing director of Lionsgate India, told Quartz.
This pact has added over 500 hours of English-language content to SonyLIV, including popular shows like Power, Sweetbitter, and The White Queen. Before that, its library included fewer than 90 English-language shows.
“It’s a win-win for both. Lionsgate is a great content repository for a platform looking to grow,” said Uday Sodhi, digital business head at Sony Pictures Networks India.
Below are edited excerpts from Quartz’s conversation with Jain and Sodhi.
What makes SonyLIV a good partner for Lionsgate?
Sodhi: We’re one of the largest players in the OTT space. We’re seeing subscribers grow at a large pace and wanted to strengthen our premium English content offering. Consumers already come to us for sports, for Hindi shows, and for game shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati—this becomes new kind of content to attract consumers. We want to see what kind of shows are being consumed in India, what kind of target group comes to us, and once we understand how consumption is happening, we’ll see how to expand this offering.
Only around 10% of India speaks English. Is this content category really large and growing?
Jain: This is not either or. We are a multi-lingual country and there’s no reason it should be otherwise. In the last one-and-a-half years, we’ve realised the Indian customer is far more global than most of us had imagined and as you take more and more global content, they’re lapping it up.
Why is the deal just for shows and not movies?
Jain: We’re starting off with series. We will continue to explore new things. In our independent capacity anyway, we’ve started work on originals in India where some are adaptations of global series and some new stories waiting to be told.
Do you think subscription-based video platforms will win in India?
Sodhi: It’s not an easy answer. There is no one way that says you should either be free or advertising-supported or subscription-supported. There are very successful global models built fully on advertising or on subscription. But we’re seeing a lot of freemium kind of businesses emerge in China and India. Most of us are realising that in emerging markets, we need to keep a mix of premium and free. Consumers will come sample something, get hooked onto the service, and at some point in time move into the subscription. We’ll have to make sure we’re addressing each piece of content from a price and consumption point of view.
Jain: We’re too early to evaluate this. When it comes to the whole OTT business in India, a large part of volume came up in the last three years, which was essentially catch up of what was playing on TV. It’s now that you’re seeing everybody adding a layer of original, English-language programming and differentiated product. I suppose like with TV, there’s free-to-air and subscription models; we need to figure out where the balance lies.
How do you measure what works on the web and make the next move?
Jain: Digital is the strongest measurable medium. On TV, what you’re doing is sampling. Then you’re extrapolating the sampling to make assumptions of viewership. Here, you know every second what a customer watches, what time he or she watches, and so on. You understand demographics at the deepest level. You get instant feedback—not weekly ratings or monthly feedback. You can’t be any more connected than this. There’s far more science available than there used to be.
Sodhi: Most of it has got to do with being able to understand the trends. If, for example, there’s more consumption on historical shows, people are bingeing back-to-back, then you think “yes, there’s a consumption story here.” We’re getting far more information about trends. About what kind of genres are interesting for people, what kind of stars and actors people are watching. How we can use that information and create the next show is a tough one but with more information, one can take more intelligent decisions.