With Amazon Prime Video approaching six years of operations in India, it is one of the market leaders in the streaming sector. Much of the success is due to dealing with the many local languages in the broad market.
“One of the things we look at as we expand into new territories and languages is to see the early signs and then multiply those early signs,” said Gaurav Gandhi, Vice President of Amazon Prime Video India. diverse. The service’s software is available in 10 languages in India, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali and English.
“When we started programming in 10 languages, we saw early indications before most others about how content would travel across languages,” says Gandhi, who spoke on the sidelines of the APOS conference in Singapore. “Today, 50% of our audience sees content in four or more languages, which was not the case three or four years ago. And the main reason for that is the fact that as you program in multiple languages across the board, we realize that you really transcend language barriers and expand the language board. “.
Gandhi refers to the fact that in India prior to broadcasting, audiences were accustomed to watching pay-TV in their native language packages and movies that were theatrically shown in specific language-specific locations. That has all changed now, and even more so in the two years of the pandemic when content from anywhere in India has boomed across the country. Gandhi says that for content in the four South Indian languages - Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam – 50% of viewers were from outside those languages’ home states.
India is a region where live streamers offering cheap and language-oriented original programming are expanding hugely, but Gandhi considers them to be market expanders and not competitors.” Gandhi says, “I feel very encouraged about what we are doing, but it is also good that everyone is expanding this market.” And the sector is for everyone.” “We are glad that so much content is being created in the industry, it benefits the entire creative ecosystem. And it benefits the creative economy very dramatically.”
Amazon’s current native programming is in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, and other language commissions will be forthcoming.
Another big driver of growth in the Indian broadcasting space is sports, especially cricket. Disney + Hotstar is in a leadership position thanks to the winning rights to the latest round of the lucrative Indian Premier League cricket tournament. However, Viacom18 won the broadcast rights for the next cycle. Amazon had its hat in the ring for both sessions. Gandhi refuses to speculate on whether the operator will bid for the IPL rights when they become available again, choosing to focus on the India and New Zealand series they have rights to.
October 1 will see the rollout of 5G networks across India, a move which Reliance Jio, the telecom market leader, sees as a game-changer. “Any investment that enables consumption, purchase and ease of viewing is a category enhancement,” Gandhi says, adding that more immersive content will come into play.
[ad_2]
