Video streaming services were expected to spend around Rs. 1,920 crore to create original content for India in 2021, a 17% rise over Rs. 1,400 crore spent in 2019.
The platforms will further increase spends, including on sports, to ₹30,000 crore, during 2021-25, according to the latest Ficci-EY media and entertainment industry report. Around 500 original titles were likely to be released in 2021 across platforms, as opposed to 385 titles in 2019 and 220 in 2020.
The investment in original content makes sense given that viewers are learning to pay for the content they consume. In 2020, 29 million subscribers paid for 53 million OTT video subscriptions (not counting subscriptions bundled along with data plans), a figure that was estimated to increase to 39 million subscribers for 71 million subscriptions in 2021.
India is not only one of the fastest-growing media and entertainment markets globally but is also well poised to keep this momentum going, according to media experts. Add to that the advent and consolidation of regional players such as aha Video (Telugu), Koode (Malayalam) and City Shor TV (Gujarati). Demand for original content will double by 2023 from 2019 levels to more than 3,000 hours per year, according to the report and the share of regional language consumption on OTT platforms will cross 50% of total time spent by 2025, easing past Hindi at 45%.
Further, the demand for quality content and superior user experiences have led to heavy investments by OTT providers in content libraries and technology.
