ROLE OF COVID AS A CATALYST IN INCREASING ADOPTION OF OTTS IN INDIA: A STUDY OF EVOLVING CONSUMER CONSUMPTION PATTERNS AND FUTURE BUSINESS SCOPE

Abstract

COVID-19 is an unprecedented global pandemic which has changed the way audience consume media. An undeniable trend surfaced in this period– adoption of OTTs. There are many reports which point to the growing market and consumer appetite for content of choice available on OTT platforms. OTTs offer a never before consumer advantage– choice of content, ease of access, choice of device / mediums (hand phone, laptop, tablet or TV screen). Gone are the days when family members fought for screen time of choice on family’s singular home device i.e. TV. With this study, the researchers studied the evolution of OTT space in India and reviewed the dynamic OTT space – evaluate some firsts like big banner movie releases on platforms like Amazon and Netflix, return of old content like Mythological programmes from the DD era on Hotstar etc. To complete the study, it was imperative to evaluate the impact of growing content consumption on psychographics across generations (children, adults and elderlies) as there is limited censorship in the OTT space. With this background, the researchers workedon the objectives and tried to evaluate the role played by the pandemic in evolving OTT media consumption trends; a qualitative mapping of increase in OTT adoption – Pre and Post COVID 19 in India; study underlying trends around increasing consumer appetite for the medium and analyse psychographic impact on children, adults and elderlies – listing pros and cons for freely available content with minimal censorship. The researchers adopteda combined qualitative and quantitative approach to extrapolate the data. A survey was also conducted to do audience mapping and analysis.In addition to primary data, content from news articles, industry research reports, international journals for accumulation of key trends were analysed.