Content is king as Indians lap up on homegrown and vernacular digital video platforms

Content is king as Indians lap up on homegrown and vernacular digital video platforms

• By Staff Writer

Content is king as Indians lap up on homegrown and vernacular digital video platforms

Content in king

Digitization of media and entertainment has given birth to a new ecosystem that thrives on content. And with the arrival of hyper data speeds, people love to watch more, read more and immerse themselves in new media experiences. More often today it is content that drives viewership, content that dictates popularity and content alone that determines the success of any audience interactive platform. Furthermore, with the democratization in media, user-led content is also controling the media universe. The supremacy of capital-rigorous media houses distributing content is fading as power is coming back to people.

Betting big on India

According to a report by ET, with the world's second largest internet user base and the highest data consumption, India is a big bet for domestic and international digital companies as a growth driver and money-spinner. Millennials in the country are not only consuming content on these platforms but also actively creating content across genres like comedy, dance and education, among others. With the pandemic and the securing lockdown restricting movements, people turned to digital platforms for their dose of entertainment. They binged on web series on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and logged onto platforms like YouTube to learn new recipes and pick up new skills like playing the guitar.

Homegrown apps

Blocking of Chinese apps by the Indian government came as a boon for homegrown startups like Moj, Chingari and Kaagaz Scanner that saw downloads and usage zoom almost overnight. This rapid pace of growth also helped many of them increase funds. VerSe Innovation received USD 100 million funding from Google, Microsoft and Falcon Edge's Alpha Wave Incubation while vernacular language social networking platform ShareChat raised USD 40 million from Hero MotoCorp's Pawan Munjal, DCM Shriram promoters' family office, and others. Kaagaz Scanner secured USD 575,000, Bolo Indya mopped up USD 400,000, and Chingari raised USD 1.3 million in seed funding.

Vocal for local

Short video platform Bolo Indya has said extra than 180 million videos were created on its platform this year in 14 languages across topics like comedy, fitness and others. Also, the content created clocked 3.1 billion shares on WhatsApp and Telegram. Hindi led short video creation with 37.5 per cent share, followed by Tamil and Telugu contributing together to another 33 per cent, it said. Comedy topped the trend with over 27 per cent users creating or sharing content on the genre this year. Conversations on Fitness and Entertainment were also high with over 17 per cent and 16 per cent content coming from the genres, respectively.

Show me the money

In 2020, Bolo Indya witnessed steep increase in the number of short video content creators as the number jumped from 75,000 at the start of the year to over 2.7 million at present. More than 90,000 short video content creators on Bolo Indya crossed 2.5 lakh followers while over 750 have extra than 10 lakh followers. Maximum followers for a creator stood at 2.4 million in 2020. "Creators cumulatively earned north of Rs 1.7 crore in 2020 through Bolo Meets, and took their average earnings up to Rs 60,000 per month on an average. Maximum earning by a creator in a month in 2020 was Rs 1.1 lakh," the report said.

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