Interview: PALLAVI PURI, chief commercial and content officer, Tata Sky: We have a content-first approach towards promoting Tata Sky Binge app

The expectation is to help them get a wider reach for their offerings and we strengthen our content portfolio for our subscribers, making it a win-win scenario for all.

Tata Sky Binge app is now available on your smartphone. This initiative by one of India’s leading Pay TV platforms is intended to make quality entertainment available to all viewers on their screens of choice. “It is in sync with our endeavour towards making our products available to a larger audience base. Our subscribers can now access their choice of OTT content, on large and small screens, at home or on-the-go, all with a unified interface, single subscription and sign-on,” Pallavi Puri, chief commercial &
content officer, Tata Sky, tells Sudhir Chowdhary in a recent interview. Excerpts:

You have introduced Binge app at two interesting price points. What is the strategy behind this?
The launch of Tata Sky Binge mobile app is in sync with our endeavour towards making our products available to a larger stratum of the audience. After Binge Fire TV Stick-Tata Sky edition and Binge+ Smart STB, Binge mobile app was always the next step for us. The idea behind launching at two different price points— Rs 149 and Rs 299 was to empower subscribers with the choice of content and choice of screen and to cater to the audience segment that prefers a more personalised content viewing experience.

What makes Tata Sky Binge a better proposition than other bundled apps?
Some of the key features that sets us apart is our proposition of single sign-in and single payment along with a rich unified interface that allows users to discover and browse content from across the top OTT apps. We have a content-first approach towards promoting and positioning Binge. Thereby, content from multiple streaming services is curated under categories such as New Releases, Popular Movies, Trending Now, etc., making content discoverability easy, thereby encouraging people to stop searching and start watching content—from 10 genres and 12 languages, all on one platform.

What kind of response are you expecting from the Binge app launch?
All Tata Sky subscribers with smartphones can now enjoy a wholesome content viewing experience through the Binge app. Audience segments that prefer a more personalised content viewing experience that can be accessed on-the-go, we believe will like and gain from this app. With an integrated offering that extends a wide choice of content from premium OTT apps with a single monthly subscription and single payment, we are confident of the app’s success. The initial goal is to popularise the app and establish its benefits.

What is the nature of partnership of Binge with the OTT players and what kind of content receives more viewership on Binge?
We are glad to have partnered with some of the top OTT players in the industry for the Tata Sky Binge service. The partners and us concurrently agree upon the common goal of providing the best of entertainment to our target audience. The expectation is to help them get a wider reach for their offerings and we strengthen our content portfolio for our subscribers, making it a win-win scenario for all.

While movies contributed to the major share of viewership initially, over the last year we saw a trend of more and more engagement on web-series, so much so that now it’s at an almost equal split. Action, drama, comedy are the most popular content categories. Hindi is the most consumed language followed by English. We get good engagement on content of other languages as well.

Will more OTT players be onboarded to the platform?
We are constantly evolving and upgrading our content offering for our subscribers, to which effect we have almost all the leading OTT players onboard. We will keep adding to the list to ensure entertainment and content choices are limitless for our subscribers.