Regional streaming platforms dedicated to one language seem to be capturing the hyper local market where giants like Netflix and Amazon have yet to make an impact.
“Regional streaming platforms are the new future,” said Suriya Narayanan, chief creative officer, Aha, a dedicated Telugu streaming platform.
He was speaking at the twelfth edition of the Bengaluru International Film Festival (BiFFes). Aha, which was launched less than a month ago, is one of the more newer offerings.
First one
The first dedicated language streaming platform was Hoichoi for Bengali content, Sun NXT, a streaming platform with extensive focus on south Indian languages. “I’m sure, very soon there will be a dedicated streaming platform for Kannada content. We at Aha are also looking to enter the Kannada market very soon,” Mr. Narayanan said.
Netflix, Amazon and Mubi are billed as platforms for the globalisation of content - for both consumers and creators. But a counter-current seems to be gathering momentum in the form of regional streaming platforms.
“The wide variety of content in several languages in India is something centralised firms — both national and international — struggle hard to grapple with. That is where the regional platforms are coming in. Content on most of the streaming platforms today is not accessible to the non-metro audience especially in small towns and villages, where there is an appetite for content consumption on mobile phones,” he added.
He cited a study which said that Indians spend an average 3.5 hours on their mobile phones consuming content, most of it in non-metro areas.
For now, most regional streaming services divide the audience based on the local language. “This will be the trend for the next six to seven years. Once there is wide coverage for streaming platforms in regional languages, a smaller cross-section will develop an appetite for global content. Then, maybe international platforms will acquire or tie-up with regional apps, which will then create app-within-app model to give consumers both regional and global content,” he predicted.
