Netflix, the world’s largest subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) player and the initiator of genre is in the news.
Netflix reportedly lost 200,000 subscribers globally in the first quarter of this financial year. The ostensible reasons are that many subscribers do password sharing, there is of course greater competition and the geopolitical reason being Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the shutting down of its Russian language service.
Sources estimate Netflix has a subscriber base of around 5 million only in the country in the Rs.14,000-crore streaming video market by value.
Netflix’s total global subscriber base of 222 million.
Pricing:
Mobile-only plan cut by 25 per cent to Rs.149 a month
All content on any one device slashed by 60 per cent to Rs 199 a month
Amazon
The over-the-top (OTT) platform, Prime Video, turns 5 years in India in 2022. It is now moving into pay-per-view movie service with Prime Video Store.
The Transaction Video- on-demand (TVod) foray is being looked at as its attempt to competes with Disney+ Hotstar and Netflix among other players for a bigger slice of the OTT market.
Sources estimate Amazon Prime Video has a subscriber base of 19 million in India.
Its total subscriber base is 200 million.
Pricing:
Pay-per- view or TVod service will be available for Rs.69 to Rs.499 for a one-time watch.
TVod was earlier offered by ZeePlex, BookMyShow Stream, and ShemarooMe without much success.
Disney+ Hotstar,
The number of subscriber for Hotstar is estimated to be about 46 million.
What is significant is that Disney+ has about 46 million subscriber or over a third of its global 130 million from India.
So far, these platforms have been about entertainment, and some non-fiction documentaries. The moot point is many news organisations have invested on video hoping for streaming services to open up as distribution channels, but will they and when?
