Pre and Post COVID-19 Sentiment Analysis of Consumers For OTT
Pre and Post COVID-19 Sentiment Analysis of Consumers For OTT
Pre and Post COVID-19 Sentiment Analysis of Consumers For OTT
ABSTRACT
The entire media and entertainment industry are going through unprecedented changes in this age of digital disruption. The rise of
the Over-The-Top (OTT) platform has transformed consumer experience and expectations. OTT players (Netflix, Amazon Prime
Video, Hulu, Disney+, etc.) offer a wide array of diverse choices of content while enabling consumers to choose their content,
watching time, and place independently. OTT platforms and digital media have already seen increasing popularity across locations
and demographics. Adding to the momentum, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, social lives have shifted to online, people are
restricted to their homes, so inclination towards OTT and digital media has accelerated significantly. Consumer behavior is
undergoing profound change as the world adjusts to this new normal. This study aims to understand the changing consumer
behavior towards the adaptation of the OTT platform during the COVID-19 pandemic.
KEYWORDS:
Over-The-Top, digital media, Netflix, entertainment industry, COVID-19, OTT players
Article Received: 10 August 2020, Revised: 25 October 2020, Accepted: 18 November 2020
• Video: Online video streaming is the most long-distance calls, and SMS service. Also, the
popular type of content, OTT platform provides. traditional media is facing huge competition by
There are many platforms like Netflix, Hotstar new OTT services providers for
offer a large variety of video content based on theircontemporary approach of audio and video
subscription-based or free membership business streaming services. Today’s consumers prefer
model. “on- demand" experience. So, we can say there
• Audio: Along with online video streaming are a consumer preference shift from traditional
audio streaming is another important content entertainment & media to “on-demand‟ media.
OTT platform delivers. Podcast, the internet The rise of OTT platforms and the ease of access
radio station is a well-known example of it. to mobiles have drastically transformed consumer
• VOIP: Voice calling service is also another preferences towards general entertainment
significant value addition by the OTT platforms, provided by the traditional TV industry.
which is driven by the internet facility. According to a study by TechARCUnomer, 4 out
• Messaging: Nowadays different instant of 5 smartphone users have at least one OTT
internet-based messaging platform (i.e. Skype, entertainment platform which is 80% of whole
WhatsApp) is there which successfully reduce smartphone subscribers (Khatri, 2019). In 2018
the use of the mobile SMS feature(Gaoshinde, the OTT platform revenue in India was evaluated
2020). to be 638 million this was majorly due to driving
digital media consumption on mobile devices and
1.2. Different business models for OTT the evolution of smart TV which allows OTT
Services platforms to broadcast on television via the use of
In this competitive age like any other industry WiFi. Both global and Indian OTT players are
OTT also revolved around different innovative providing multiple choices around content
business models that solely depend on the consumption to the consumer, due to which
customer segment, market condition, and present consumer preference is shifting. Domestic OTT
competition. The following are the options present players like Hotstar have made disruptions to how
in the current market. consumers used to watch the sports content.
• Subscription-based: Users need to pay a According to figures released by ICC in 2019, the
periodical (weekly/monthly or annual) fee to world cup semi-final between India and New
avail of the service. Zealand made a record with
• Usage/Transaction: Users need to pay for a 25.3 million people live streaming the match on
particular resource or service they are using. Hotstar (Rashid, 2019).
• Advertisements: Supplier sells their ads over COVID-19 pandemic has restricted live
the OTT platform while users are viewing any entertainments and film business due to several
content over the OTT platform. social distancing laws and lockdown policies
• Freemium: This is a hybrid model where some imposed by the government. Like many other
basic content or features are free for any user, countries In India government extended lockdown
but some content or access is offered at a price. for more than 4 months resulted in a huge
• Donations: There are some OTT platforms financial crisis in the film industries due to the
(Wikipedia), which are funded by donations. inability to release movies within cinema halls.
• Monetization of Information: Users' data is So, by following the classic rule "necessity is the
disclosed, and suppliers monetize user mother of invention" this pandemic situation
information(Baldry et al., 2014). creates a brand-new way of a cinema release in
OTT platforms. This move of many filmmakers
Over the years significant changes had happened resulting in prominent engagement of OTT media
in different OTT platforms. Traditional telephone platforms in Movie release even after the removal
service is now facing a tough competition with of lockdown Policies.
OTT communication and SMS service replaced According to a report published by Reuters,
by different OTT players like Hike, WhatsApp, Netflix’s global total has reached 182.9 million
etc. Thus, traditional Telcom service provider is from January to March (Richwine & Rana,
challenged in some of their business lines like 2020).It shows that people are bingeing on shows
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like Money Heist, Dark, Love, and Blind, etc. on various devices like mobile laptops, tablets,
This pandemic had contributed significantly to the etc. Witnessing the outcome of a thirty-country
already changing behavioral patterns of consumer study, (Noam, 2016) concluded that concentration
abut digital consumption. levels for mobile wireless and other “network
media” are “astonishingly high”. While the data
Objective for content media is mixed, the trend of adopting
The primary objective of this paper is to OTT is increasing.
understand consumer perception about the OTT A study conducted in India reveals that OTT
platform during the pre-COVID-19 phase and post platform is becoming popular day by day and
COVID-19 phase and analyze current consumer youth prefer to watch the content of their own
engagement with popular OTT players, through choice on OTT platform, because of its multifaced
sentiment analysis. feature and flexibility and wide range of variety
(P. Singh, 2019). So, entertainment trends are
Literature Review changing due to Online platforms. People are
Over-The-Top service providers deliver video, shifting from traditional channels to the OTT
audio, and other type of content over the internet platform because of the more personalized
and eliminate the traditional telecom operator’s experience and that increases the penetration of
network. As OTT players do not need specific mobile computing devices. The mobile phone
technology and business affiliations with telecom provides more convenience of watching preferred
network operators, they are familiar with the term content at anytime and anywhere rather than smart
"Over-The-Top" (OTT) applications(Kokaram et TV, laptops, and other devices. We can say that
al., 2015). OTT (over-the-top) platforms have challenged the
According to Herrero, the distribution of audio- Indian entertainment media. Subscription-based
visual content over the Internet is a great way to OTT platforms like Amazon Prime, Hotstar,
realize economies of scale and effective NextG have become popular over the past years
broadcasting strategies. But the most difficult part and replacing traditional Television media for
for the telecom players is the fact that these OTT progressive Indians (Kohli, 2019).
players offer services that are close substitutes to Worldwide digital media is projected to increase
their offerings and are posing a significant threat to $118bn by 2021 with a compound annual
to their revenues. The wide range of variety of growth rate of 11% between 2016 and 2021
services and applications offered by OTT players (Lacy, 2017).
is tempting the customers away from the telecom A recent survey by InMobi states that in this
players (Herrero-Subías, 2003). COVID-19 situation 46% of consumers are
(Budzinski & Lindstädt-Dreusicke, 2018) preferring to watch content online. According to
mentioned three characteristics of the OTT the study, OTT services could evolve drastically
platform in contrast with the traditional in upcoming days as the traditional television
entertainment medium. Firstly, OTT significantly channels lack in terms of the latest content. In
reduces the such an unprecedented time, people are stressed
distribution costs and offer an open platform in and willing to watch fresh content. To leverage
which creators can share their content through an the benefit from this increasing pattern of demand
online medium (e.g. YouTube, Hotstar) and reach OTT platforms such as Zee5 and VOOT have
to a large number of audiences across offered few contents free. Due to this, Zee5 has
demographics easily. Secondly, platforms like achieved an 80% increase in subscription and over
OTT successfully bridges the gap between the 50% time spend recently. Urban drama, thrillers,
customer and content provider through real-time and young romance are the top-performing genres
feedback (e.g. reviews, comments, likes, ratings). on the platform. The number of viewership for the
In this analytical age, feedback data plays an movies has seen a significant increase over the
important role in an overall understanding of last couple of months during the ongoing
customer demand and delivering expected pandemic situation, across many OTT platforms.
outcomes well. Lastly, OTT enhances the Movie streaming services MIBI has witnessed a
customer experience by making content available 28% rise in viewership in March, compared to
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February. In the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic streaming data. The perfect resolution of the issue
situation consumption of OTT platforms has is currently an open debate(Baldry et al., 2014).
increased and surprisingly despite the ongoing The above data points prove that despite the wide
economic crisis subscription trend has not been variety of content and becoming a close substitute
affected (D. Singh, 2020). to the traditional entertainment medium there are
The first stage of the internet revolution was certain challenges attached to the OTT platform.
introducing a wireline environment. This facility Based on an analysis of how Netflix impacted
of the web became available on laptops, PCs, and television industry in Hong Kong shows that
other electronic devices. Offering such as customer viewing habit is changing, and quality of
eCommerce, OTT Voice service came into the content plays an important role while selecting the
picture of modern life. The next stage of the mode of entertainment beside this the study also
internet revolution is wireless and is being driven suggest that people are interested in OTT video
by the domination of smartphones. Nowadays platform, but they hesitate to pay subscription fees
market boundaries are becoming a blur and new (Madhani & Nakhate, 2020). So, there is a need to
players are entering with innovative business understand what exactly consumer is thinking
models. Internet and OTT services allow these about OTT platform and are they ready to adopt
players to achieve benefits from economies of this latest entertainment media trend or not.
scale far beyond those of traditional telecom Previously consumers use to rely on the other’s
operators. This media market dynamism has the opinions like specialized magazines and friends’
regulatory norms struggling to sustain in the recommendations and while making a buying
competition space. One after another issue decision. But along with the growth of digital
regarding regulation keeps coming up and the technology and internet facilities, information
market is influenced by just in time principals sharing pattern has been shifted tremendously
(Baldry et al., 2014). (Cambria et al., 2013)
This changing market dynamic indicated that Just Nowadays consumer follows online rating app,
like a coin has two sides, the OTT platform also blogs, social networks, forums, and content-
has a flip side of it. Along with a high pace of sharing sites, etc to understand the effectiveness
market penetration OTT has to bring differences of a product or service. Many reports and
amongst family members as well as individuals or researches suggested that nowadays using various
we can say generations. In the previous era family social media platform is considered as the best
use to go out have fun and watch a long-awaited way to grow a business(Edosomwan et al., 2011).
movie on the television or in a theatre. But These social platforms contain a huge amount of
nowadays, the same family would prefer ordering opinion about almost each and every possible
food online through some web application and product or service. But processing these data and
watch some specific video content over internet drawing meaningful business insights is difficult,
applications. This phenomenon is mostly seen in so here also technology has brought some
the young population of the country, which has advanced intelligent data analysis methods like
led to creating gaps amongst family members as sentiment analysis, natural language processing
many of the senior citizens often complain that (NLP), etc , through which we can understand
their children or grandchildren do not spend consumer expectation in a structured manner(Li &
enough time with them(Baldry et al., 2014). Wu, 2010).
OTT Media has also underlined several data The literature reviews, provide insights about how
consumption issues. Most data plans have a limit the OTT platform is transforming the
on data usage, after the predefined limit volume entertainment industry but still, there are some
tariff or limited data transmission speed applies. areas where some gaps exist in researches like
Due to the latest technology High-definition understanding consumer mindset towards the
Baldry, Steingröver, & Hessler, 2014 capable adaption of On-demand-entertainment media in
devices come on the market and data limits are the pre-COVID-19 era and COVID-19 era.
quickly reached. This resulted in “bill-shock”,
where users need to pay fat bills as a result of
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and plotted into a bar-graph, which is useful in adoption of OTT media are increasing day by day.
visual analysis. In this paper, consumer sentiment is analyzed in
(1) Positive (6) Joy three different timeframes for understanding
(2) Negative (7) Fear changing consumer behaviours during COVID-19
(3) Trust (8) Disgust toward OTT platforms.
(4) Surprise (9) Anticipation Below are the three phases considered for the
(5) Sadness (10) Anger sentiment analysis
1. Pre CODIV-19 Phase
Finding and Result 2. Lockdown Phase due to COVID-19
In this COVID-19 reality, as the world is adjusting 3. Post Lock Phase
50%
40%
26% 28%
30%
20% 21% 19% 18%
20%
10%
0%
Positive Neutral Negative
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'Netflix', 'Amazon Prime Video', 'stream', 'new' video are the most popular among the consumer,
'release' are some of the most frequently used and overall people are inclined towards online
terms while discussing OTT platform. So, this streaming and live shows offered by OTT players.
word cloud indicates that among many OTT Now a comparative consumer engagement
players YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime analysis with these top 3 OTT players is done.
Sentiment Analysis of Top 3 OTT Players
80%
70% 67%
20%
10%
10% 6%
2%
0%
Positive Neutral Negative
Netflix Amazon Prime video YouTube
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but-warns-coronavirus-boost-may-fade-
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