One of the big changes which has occurred under the new normal is that life has undergone a big change with digital playing an important role. All the categories that were dependent on offline registered a fall, while digital only categories have witnessed a huge rise. With TV content witnessing a period of drought during lockdown, India emerged as the nation consuming online video the most. “OTT has now become the new normal,” Karan Bedi, CEO, MX Player, said. He was speaking at the inaugural edition of BrandWagon Conclave, held virtually.

And all this has generated a lot of data. While the business of entertainment in the past was all about content and distribution. Now it is about content, distribution and data. For instance, Bedi points out, in the case of MX Player, 60% of the audience base comes from outside of the top eight metros and nearly 40% seek non-hindi content. “It’s because of data that we are able to meet the needs of our audiences. The content created on the OTT has been specifically curated on the basis of the insights that we have gathered from the data,” he stated.

As per Bedi, with more smartphone screens available in India than TV screens, the definition of prime-time has changed significantly. “The convenience of being able to watch content whenever and however you want has essentially become a part of the new normal,” he added. This leads to an important predicament- how do the consumer decide what to watch? For this, Bedi claims, data helps create a customised content for an individual viewer by offering content suitable to the viewer’s likes and dislikes. In effect, data creates context for every individual user.

However, the cost of surfing content online does not only include the platform subscription fee but also includes the internet charges the consumer has to pay. Citing an example of MX Player, Bedi highlighted how the platform has a large team investing in an end-to-end proprietary video compression to provide content to consumers without being a data guzzler. “Our video compression technology is 70% better that most of our competitors in the market,” he exclaimed.

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