FEATURES
Platforms: BigFlix
03 September 2014
3 September 2014: Analysts might not be over the moon about the short/medium term profit prospects of OTT, but there's clearly no shortage of companies in Asia willing to give multi-screen options a go. Malena Amzah spoke to 19 online/OTT platforms in the region about what they have, what they would like to have, and the biggest things they think are standing in their way. Analysts might not be over the moon about the short/medium term profit prospects of OTT, but there’s no shortage of companies in Asia willing to give multi-screen options a good go. This includes established free- and pay-TV broadcasters, who are moving lock, stock and tech barrel into non traditional delivery, leveraging the rights they own in new spaces and creating – or hoping to – original content for online services. Channels and acquisitions execs are also pushing hard for as many rights as possible, hoping to drive online viewership, engagement and revenue. What are these and their stand-alone online platform rivals most concerned about? Interviews with 19 platforms* in Asia showed that piracy is the top concern along with access to and cost of rights, and censorship, which drives users away. Priorities include presenting a simple and easy-to-use entertainment service, available everywhere with broad content choices at the right price models and designs that serve multiple user groups’ needs. Here’s what else they said...BigFlixBigFlix is an online movie on-demand service offering downloads of Indian movies and streaming across internet-connected devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs. BigFlix is owned and operated by Reliance Entertainment Digital (a part of India’s Reliance Group)."More and more content owners have decided to go OTT, which will potentially fuel further market growth." Manish Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer, India’s Reliance Entertainment ...
3 September 2014: Analysts might not be over the moon about the short/medium term profit prospects of OTT, but there's clearly no shortage of companies in Asia willing to give multi-screen options a go. Malena Amzah spoke to 19 online/OTT platforms in the region about what they have, what they would like to have, and the biggest things they think are standing in their way. Analysts might not be over the moon about the short/medium term profit prospects of OTT, but there’s no shortage of companies in Asia willing to give multi-screen options a good go. This includes established free- and pay-TV broadcasters, who are moving lock, stock and tech barrel into non traditional delivery, leveraging the rights they own in new spaces and creating – or hoping to – original content for online services. Channels and acquisitions execs are also pushing hard for as many rights as possible, hoping to drive online viewership, engagement and revenue. What are these and their stand-alone online platform rivals most concerned about? Interviews with 19 platforms* in Asia showed that piracy is the top concern along with access to and cost of rights, and censorship, which drives users away. Priorities include presenting a simple and easy-to-use entertainment service, available everywhere with broad content choices at the right price models and designs that serve multiple user groups’ needs. Here’s what else they said...BigFlixBigFlix is an online movie on-demand service offering downloads of Indian movies and streaming across internet-connected devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs. BigFlix is owned and operated by Reliance Entertainment Digital (a part of India’s Reliance Group)."More and more content owners have decided to go OTT, which will potentially fuel further market growth." Manish Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer, India’s Reliance Entertainment DigitalTarget users New generation of users and net-savvy movie buffs Daily average viewing Seven minutes on the site choosing shows and two hours streamingWho’s who... Manish Agarwal, chief executive officer, Reliance Entertainment Digital; Abhilekh Kumar, business head, BigFlixGeo-blocked Only available in India Tech partners Akamai (CDN), NextGen (data centre), Microsoft Silverlight for website (DRM) and Inka (apps) What’s in the name “‘Big’ was the brand we were promoting for the entertainment business and ‘flix’ is associated with movies. As this would be easy for the consumer to relate to the offering, we named it BigFlix.” [Manish Agarwal] Launched January 2012 How it all started? The initial aim was to offer consumers all destinations of entertainment, such as movies, theatre and music. In the early days, BigFlix opened on-ground retail destinations, with an online portal where users could choose movies and order physical home deliveries. “As the digital medium started growing, we needed to reach users who were watching movies digitally and therefore started BigFlix. Over the years the digital business has grown while the physical format of movies declined. Therefore we shut the physical movie rental and re-launched BigFlix as an online streaming and download service.” [Manish Agarwal] Full time employees 20 people The offering More than 1,000 movie titles in 10 languages, including action, comedy to drama and romance. Features include Continue Watching (start movie from where it was last left across any device), Queue (personal playlist of movies) and Collections (a selection of top movies across categories).” Price plans From Rs99/US$1.65 for seven days to Rs1799/US$30 a year. Transactional video-on-demand is Rs50/US$0.84 each titleHow many hours of new content are added a month? 50-100 hours Content partners Production houses such as Shemaroo, Vidhu Vinod Chopra films, Vishesh Films, Disney and IndiaCast, among others Most-watched shows Boss, BA Pass, Shoot Out At Wadala Subscribers/registered users More than a million registered users and over 100,000 subscribers (May 2014) Take-up expectation by end 2014 “Double the current subscriber base and we will see a 40%-50% growth rate year on year.” Challenges Piracy, lengthy window rights for streaming/download services (for major releases), connectivity (the wait for LTE) and high data costs in India 2014 priorities Content acquisition/distribution (via new and innovative channels) and expand video formats The best thing that has happened to the OTT industry in Asia so far this year is... “More and more content owners have decided to go OTT, which will potentially fuel further market growth. Until recently, content owners were only providing content to operators. This gradual shift bodes very well for OTT as an industry.” [Manish Agarwal] What do you think will have the most impact on the OTT industry in Asia in 2015? “Changing consumer behaviour where the shift continues from traditional broadcasters to OTT. Also, users are beginning to embrace the pay-per-click model, which will potentially form an important part of OTT players’ strategy. Finally, any movement in the direction of tackling piracy will have profound impact on how the industry will move from here on.” [Manish Agarwal]* All information and opinion was supplied by the platforms themselves and fact checked for accuracy as far as humanly possible. ContentAsia has not road-tested all the platforms and offers no opinion on how well any of them work or what the strengths and weaknesses are from a consumer perspective.Issue Three 2014