 And now for our opening address of E4M Play, streaming media conference. I'd like to welcome Kanshan Santani, managing director and partner, B.C. J. Jalia. A very warm welcome to you, ma'am. Thank you. And I hope the audio is okay. Absolutely. Great, thank you. So good afternoon, everyone. And first of all, thank you for having me here in this forum to speak with all of you. And we are all, as a country, at a very difficult time in the throes of wave two. And the pandemic situation over the past year has impacted both our daily lives, our personal lives, as well as particularly for the businesses, like the one that we are discussing today. It's really changed the business in a pretty unprecedented manner as well. It's really forced all of us to challenge our conventional ways of thinking, business operating models, what to expect in terms of growth, what to expect in terms of consumer demand. But today, I think it's hard to have a conversation without acknowledging the current situation that we are in. And the fact that all of us are still here, having this discussion, I think, is very commendable. At BCT over the past year or so, we've also been trying to, in addition, understand the impact on consumer behavior over this period of time. And the implications of that on media and entertainment businesses, not just the OTT businesses, but also the more traditional media businesses. Today, however, I want to take a slightly longer term view. We do believe that some of the trends on the consumer front have actually changed for good. And while understanding the impact of the pandemic is very important in the short to medium term, but there are also longer term fundamental drivers for streaming digital video growth in India that we should now acknowledge and think through how we evolve and how it gains momentum, not just in terms of consumers and viewership, but also monetization going forward. So I'm hoping that over the next few minutes, I'm just able to provide some food for thought to trigger some discussions that you'll have over the course of the day. And I look forward to your questions and reflections as we go through this over the next 30 minutes or so as well. So I think maybe just to start with and to set the context, the consumption of media and entertainment has been quite robust, I think as already noted in the opening address in the last half an hour. And it's been very robust through the pandemic. Of course, there were some short-term losses when the whole country was in lockdown, but there was a recovery. And from a consumer France, there was a recovery at a rate that's actually higher than the pre-COVID baseline. I think what's also happened and which is unique to India is that multimodal growth is continuing. And traditional media, particularly TV is continuing to grow, although of course that a much slower pace than what digital media or OTT is growing at now. So there has been growth in consumption and there has been growth in consumption pretty much across types of screens with digital leading the pack. We've also seen for the first time there is some level of maturity which is coming through in the Indian consumer with some real signs that the Indian consumer is now willing to pay for content, particularly on digital media going forward. And there are some good, robust early signs of that coming through as well. And I think if I take a longer-term view despite the situation that we are in, these are all longer-term very positive signs for the industry. In India, even pre-pandemic, we had reached an average time of about 40 hours per week of media and entertainment activity for consumers on an average. This was still continuing to grow at low single digits which is actually pretty much in line with what you expect when you see the global trends as well. However, some parts of the media and entertainment pack have seen very strong movement towards digital media, particularly what we are calling watch on the stage which traditionally used to be the television channel but nearly 20% of that even pre-pandemic was actually starting to have that much share on the digital front. And then as you move forward and look at the news and read and that side of the house, nearly a third of it was actually already being time spent on digital media. And these are really India average numbers. In reality, when you cut down the consumer steps, you look at urban households, you look at households with access to internet, these numbers actually look even more stark which tells us that a lot of growth has yet to come and the opportunity and the fundamental consumer trend is really here to stay. Switching gears maybe just to talk more specifically about OTT and the fundamental drivers that I've been talking about. I think there are some really big numbers here. By 2024, we expect that there could be as much as 900 million internet users in the country. As much as 750, 800 million of those users could actually be using a smartphone. As much as 700 million of those could have some access to some video on demand platforms award or S-Words. And nearly 200 of them could actually pay for OTT or pay for this video on content that they're consuming. The number of broadband households, the amount of time spent on online video, all of that is really at an inflection point. And this is a consumer trend. We could be off here by a year, we could be off by two years, but we don't fundamentally believe that this picture will look different. The picture will play out. The timing depends a bit on how we progress as a country in terms of the supply side of things as well. But what's the implication of this really for OTT, which is the topic for discussion today? And how do we as an industry ensure that this opportunity actually gets realized and monetized over a period of time is what I hope we are able to discuss over the course of today. The market structure for the OTT segment today is already quite complex. And it is a bit challenging relative to the level of monetization that you see in the industry. There are no entry barriers. Anyone with a good proposition can come in and launch a platform. So the fight for eyeballs, the fight for revenue per eyeball is very much live and very much here. Now we've done extensive research in the past, which has shown that on an average, a consumer spends time on about two and a half apps on his or her smartphone, which given the context of having 30 plus OTT platforms in the country leads to a real fragmentation of eyeballs. And hence, as you look at creating longer term sustainable, profitable business models, either the category creation towards a sport has to be very aggressive or different types of business models will emerge and also succeed. For example, regional business models or business models where the content is quite niche is able to attract a certain type of consumer segment and is able to monetize that consumer segment. But one side of the house needs to work out. Either these are very niche business models with the need for a smaller set of consumers to actually make it sustainable, or actually the growth continues on a much more aggressive level. But really there is a question around just building out the business in a way that it is longer term sustainable and profitable. The current pandemic has also helped the industry to some extent by shifting advertising at a faster pace away from traditional media towards OTT. Last year during the lockdown and post the lockdowns when we spoke to advertisers, the consensus view was that with marketing spends getting a bit more constrained, the need for really understanding the return on investment on marketing spend has become even more critical and digital platforms are better set up to deliver that. And there are a few critical levers that are required to be exercised by all digital players to actually improve the advertising monetization. I think the first one is improved targeting or what we call custom audiences to get the ads to reach the real potential consumer to reduce the wastage. And it needs to be based on really good consumer data with strong ability to mine that and be able to specifically price that. Even when marketing campaigns are running in our lives, there is a need from advertisers to keep optimizing the campaign parameters based on the results that they are getting. And hence this real time tweaking becomes another important value proposition. And of course the measurability and the ability to actually communicate what is the real ROI. And hence all of this put together could create reduced customer acquisition costs, could create higher ROI for advertisers which particularly given the constraints that advertisers are operating under currently means that there is a significant upside to be had here. What we also noticed is over the course of the pandemic, there are a number of businesses who started advertising on digital platforms who had actually never advertised before. So I think the other opportunity really for all ODP players is to get a much larger base of advertisers into the fold rather than competing for the same sets of advertisers based on the four points that we measure here which is very specific measurability and very specific targeting of the right consumer set which is possible. So these are some of the opportunities really for OTPs going forward. The other trend which I mentioned upfront and I think is becoming stronger. And I know we have executives from many of the S-Vod platforms in this forum as well. But from a subscription standpoint, we really believe that the market is starting to get right. Today more than ever before, consumers are actually seeing the value of paying for content as long as they are getting some differentiated content on those platforms. Most platforms have also innovated and created customized plans, reduced the threshold price at which consumers are getting in which is encouraging more and more consumers to go towards the S-Vod platform. Particularly last year during the lockdown, the OTP platforms with their model were able to continue to provide some fresh content on the platform which bought consumers on board and it actually started to create longer term habits. So from a consumer standpoint, as long as the pricing is right and the value proposition works in terms of being able to get differentiated content, you know, this is a right time for growth of S-Vod and I think we are starting to see that in a lot of the numbers around us and with all the leading platforms as well. Monetization, however, continues to be somewhat of a challenge even on the S-Vod platform which will start to get addressed as the volumes build up and as you're able to get the equation right. In fact, most platforms have had to reduce the threshold price at which consumers get in to be able to get them to experience the power of original content. And then over a period of time, one has to find the right premium model which leverages both advertising and subscription to be able to create a longer term monetization. I think a couple of other opportunities for OTTs from a monetization standpoint as you look forward. I think one is that local content consumption or vernacular content consumption which is also relevant to the culture of the state and the district that you are catering to is becoming more and more important. Particularly as we see that a larger share of new internet users, new video consumers who will come on board will be rural as well as coming from tier three, tier four, India, going much deeper into India. This comes with the implication and an expectation on vernacular and very culturally relevant content. And that's an opportunity not just to grow the viewer base but to actually tap into a whole new source of monetization for the OTTs going forward. So far as well, hero content or what we call hero content which is really well advertised, well-discovered content is what often gets consumers on the platform and then they get hooked onto other content that's available on the platform. So this is a function of supply, it's a function of market maturity but continuing to have more and more original content and hero content is important from the standpoint of continuing to grow and tap into new consumer steps by the OTTs moving forward. And the big lever for OTTs, especially those with a senior model where there is some dependence on advertising is to get as close as possible to a segment of one marketing to maximize the ROI. And OTTs here as I mentioned before have a unique opportunity to bring on board advertisers who would have hesitated about getting on television given the mass nature of that and the ability to target much more finely in an OTT context. The last opportunity I want to talk about very specifically is the globalization of Indian content. This has been a dream for India for a long time and OTT platforms have a unique place and a unique opportunity to be able to do that. There is a lot of avers of original content getting created which is very culturally relevant to India and it's very customized to how the Indian consumer sees the market today. OTT platforms with their many of them with their global distribution actually have the ability to take this not just to the large Indian diaspora approach but also there is a demand for Indian content more broadly. And given the quantum of content being created given the niches that are getting created this is very much possible. And this has real legs for monetization not just by taking the content abroad but also it creates a very positive full true effect into several other sectors for India. For example, tourism in the post pandemic world and these are all tried and experimented with models in the past which have succeeded. And I think this continues to be an important lever for OTTs going forward. I don't want to spend too much time on the example but globalization of content in other parts of the world as well has actually seen a good amount of success particularly in some of the lesser known geographies through some very large well-known content and growth of India-based OTT content hence we believe will actually help and export of Indian culture and in the process boost a number of related industries such as tourism which is an important element of this. So all put together we do believe that digital media is set to fire on all cylinders. If you include gaming as a part of the industry so if I look at gaming, A-word, S-word and both supported on the digital advertising as well as on the subscription base I think numbers range anywhere from five billion to seven billion in terms of the current size of the industry. I mean, we don't see any reason why this should grow slower than 15, 20% for several years going forward which means that six, seven years out you could be looking at an industry which is between 15 to 20 billion dollars. However, this industry I strongly believe is also an industry where supply begets demand. I think the consumer side of the society now it's the turn of the players to make the right investments be agile and show the right flexibility to be able to capture these consumers and to show the right flexibility on the advertising side to be able to capture one very important source of monetization and hence my belief that this is about supply begets demand. If you're able to create the supply with the right proposition to the right pricing the demand will follow because really the consumer side of the house is very robust now. But there is a need to address a few underlying challenges if you were to look at the full potential from a monetization standpoint. We talked about the targeting and measurement of advertising ROI. OTT having a very strong value proposition here but there is a need to have a common currency which is recognized by the industry. I think this has been a discussion for several years now but there is a need for having a third party validated source of data to get the advertisers to really put dollars behind the digital advertising proposition and find a way to attribute leads which are getting generated by digital platforms to the platform where they come from. And particularly for OTT which operates very much at the top of the funnel this attribution often becomes an issue and it's something that we need to solve for as an industry. Lastly, I think there is a need for for working with some of the more traditional companies on their advertising and marketing plans and getting them to understand the power of digital marketing and what it can deliver both in terms of ROI but also in terms of very specific targeting and very specific value proposition. And I think there are places where the advertisers themselves actually need help in being taken along on this journey. They are able to see the value but they are not necessarily today set up the right way to be able to leverage the full power of digital marketing. And so as I look forward, I think the potential is immense. Unlocking this potential or decoding the potential whatever language we like to use. I think continues to require not just investment in content but investment in the most relevant culturally relevant content. Creating the value propositions for advertisers that can be cleanly articulated and demonstrated. Investment and skilling particularly with digital marketing organizations with the more traditional advertisers as well as being able to bring new advertisers into the fold by enabling them to use digital advertising in the best way possible for them. And then continued investments on analytics and technology moving forward which allows the whole value chain to work together. Then this is what I wanted to share just to kick off this discussion and just to kick off the discussion and provide some food for thought as we think about the decoding of the OTT industry over the rest of the day. I think we have a few minutes. I'm very happy to take any questions or reflections from anyone as required. Absolutely. Firstly, I wanna thank you, Kanchin, for such a broad overview of the OTT that you've given to us. Such great food for thought. I do have a couple of questions that we got in advance from our viewers. One of them pertaining to OTT in smaller towns. So how is the growing popularity of OTT in small towns impacting broadcasters and how local can the big OTT go if we can throw some light on it? I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of discussion on this over the course of the day as well but we are seeing that as the penetration of digital media is increasing a lot of the next wave of growth is coming from tier three, tier four towns and I believe even rural over a period of time. So I think that's a very important market segment going forward for all OTTs to address. So I think to that extent, this is a very important part of the market. I think see in the way to address this market distribution from an OTT standpoint is actually not that difficult. I think what is required is the right level of marketing to ensure that consumers in these markets are actually aware of the value propositions, aware of the platforms where they can get the content that they enjoy and more importantly, providing content as I said which is regional in nature which is very culturally oriented to the areas that we are trying to address. If you are able to do that, I don't see the challenge with distribution as far as OTT is concerned. I think so far, I don't think there has been a very significant impact on television watching audiences in these markets. But maybe that's a matter of time and what we are seeing in India, however, is that there seems to be some sort of settling down of some value propositions that continue to remain on television like the family watching occasion of a movie in the evening where the whole family sits together in front of the television screen. But a lot of the personal content consumption is actually what is moving to OTT and all the second screens and third screens in the households are on OTT. And I mean, we're not seeing any reason why that trend will be very different even as we go deeper into the country. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kanchan, for your time and for sharing your insights here with us from all of us at EFORM. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for having me.