History of OTT
Popularity of streaming or OTT (Over The Top) services is now mainstream. It may be hard to
remember a time before streaming services existed in our lives, but there’s actually quite an
interesting history that has already unfolded. As we all know, there is an abundance of choices
available to us as viewers. Market leaders such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar have been
joined by dozens of other services, such as Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max etc.
Let’s look back at how the OTT has grown:
Netflix started in 1997 to disrupt the market leader of renting DVDs/video tapes, Blockbuster,
which rented DVDs/video tapes via stores; Netflix did it by mail. In 1999 Netflix announced its new
subscription model, $15.95 per month, which allowed Netflix members to rent up to four movies at
a time, with no return-by dates. In 2000 Netflix abandoned late fees and return-by dates in favor of a
monthly subscription plan priced at $19.95 per month. In 2007, Netflix expanded its business with
the introduction of a streaming service, while retaining its mail-order rental service. Blockbuster
also started a streaming business that year, as well as running a DVD rentals business through its
stores. Blockbuster tried several streaming services, but nothing took off. For instance, in 2011, it
started Blockbuster Movie Pass with Dish Network, providing access to a streaming service, movies
and games-by-mail for $10 per month. But the package was only available for subscribers of Dish
Network. The rest is history. Netflix became the de facto leader of the OTT industry while
Blockbuster diminished.
History of OTT Platforms in India
The first Indian OTT platform was BigFlix, which was launched by Reliance Entertainment in
2008. In 2010, Digivive launched India's first OTT mobile app called nexGTv, which provides
access to both live TV and on–demand content. nexGTV is the first app to live–stream Indian
Premier League matches on smart phones and did so during 2013 and 2014.
OTT gained significant momentum in India when both DittoTV (Zee) and Sony Liv were
launched in the Indian market around 2013. DittoTV was an aggregator platform containing
shows across all media channels including Star, Sony, Viacom, Zee, etc.
Disney Hotstar was launched in the year 2015. And it is one of the highest watched OTT
platforms in India. As of July 2020, it has more than 300 million active users. Soon after, Netflix
began its operations in India in the year 2016 (January). Its is one of the most recognised and
prominent global OTT segment player. Netflix faces stiff competition in India from players like
Amazon Prime, Disney+Hotstar etc.
The origin of OTT services and CTV devices was rooted in the desire of viewers wanting to watch
their favorite content whenever & however they want. There is research showing that people prefer
and engage with relevant ads delivered to them without disrupting their viewing experience.
LITERATUR REVIEW
Budzinski and Lindstädt (2018) largely divided the types of VOD into “Advertising
Financed VOD (AVOD)” and “User Financed VOD (PVOD)”. In the AVOD model,
customers watch the streaming of videos for free in return for watching advertisements.
YouTube, MSN Movies, and Hulu are employing this model. On the contrary to this,
PVOD is a model that users pay fees to VOD services directly in return for watching
VOD contents. PVOD could be classified again in detail into transactional video-on-
demand (TVOD) and subscription-based video-on-demand (SVOD).
Park, Sungwook and Kwon, Youngsun (2019) founded that the larger network effects
arisen from the increase of fixed broadband may induce more new OTT entrants to enter
the market. Some of the telecoms would enter with their own OTT service as well. It
seems that these entries would make the OTT market more competitive and, it may lead
to depressed market price of OTT services, better customized services, and brisk
audiovisual content transactions for meeting varying consumers’ demands quickly in a
more efficient way. Therefore, increasing network effects may facilitate cord-cutting
KPMG (2017) founded that the digital transformation process for an OTT player is a
strategic shift with customer centricity at the core realised via persona profiling, on-
demand digital content, and personality/demographics based suggestions, provisioned
smoothly across a multitude of devices in an omni-channel environment. Delivering such
a tailored experience necessitates a technological architecture that is agile, flexible and
scalable on demand and technologies that are easy to implement and that give quick
insights for decision-making, especially around content strategies.
Nandani parikh (2020) found that people have started consuming OTT more and more in
the lockdown. The statement that OTT platforms have experienced a substantial
inorganic growth by taking up the market share of other platforms has been proved. we
can see there is suddenly a rise in the usage of OTT over other mediums and people have
positive responses for movies to be released on OTTs at the same time as in cinemas.
This shows that even though OTT platforms cannot replace cinema but certainly is
creating its own segment. We can say that in future, there might be few people who
would prefer OTT over cinema.
Meghan McAdams (April 18, 2019), made a study on“What is OTT- Understanding The
Modern Media Streaming Landscape”. The study revealed that the OTT apps clearly
represent the future of India. In her study the major thing that was concluded that 50% of
OTT customers, are experiencing “subscription fatigue”. From engaging with so many
platforms. It was also mentioned that the growth of large-scale platforms like Disney plus
could impact the prospects for smaller ,niche services.
Arturo Gutierrez (February 12,2018), made a study on “Switching Culture In Streaming
And TV Is Now A Thing”. In his study he found that TV customers looked for special
deals and promotions to switch from current providers. “Streaming apps are persistently
growing in the market”
Reshma and Chaithra (2020) that there is rapid growth of streaming culture and Indian
students preferred more of Indian based OTT apps while keeping the other countries
owned OTT apps as secondary option due to other factors related including subscription,
and the primary reason that students preferred having access to OTT apps, was due to the
influence or suggested from others to watch rather than doing a self research before
watch.
