OTTplay turns aggregator with new premium platform
Premium- With the launch of OTTplay Premium, the service will host 12 Indian and international video streaming services
OTTplay, the recommendation and content discovery platform for streaming services, launched last year by HT Labs, has now turned into streaming service featuring content from a range of OTT platforms.
With the launch of OTTplay Premium at an event in Mumbai, the service will host 12 Indian and international video streaming services. Subscribers will be able to choose from language-based or thematic subscription bundles. The platform has onboarded SonyLIV, ZEE5, Lionsgate Play, Sun NXT, ShemarooMe, Curiosity Stream, ShortsTV and DocuBay streaming services, besides the four international brands - Hallmark Movies Now, DUST, FUSE+ and Tastemade+ -that were so far unavailable in India.
HT Labs is the innovation platform of HT Media, which is also the publisher of Mint.
OTTplay subscriptions will work across iOS and Android devices and its website. Content will span nine Indian and international languages, 18-plus genres and more than 20,000 shows. Consumers will be able to access their favourite content from 12 different OTT platforms through a single subscription.
At the launch event, OTTplay’s founder Avinash Mudaliar said it was a tech-first product that aims to resolve consumers’ pain points. “We specialize in curation, aggregation, recommendation and hence personalization. With the launch of subscriptions on the OTTplay app, we now have a better understanding of our viewers’ preferences through not just their stated preferences but also their actual consumption patterns, and we are very excited to see the step-jump in the accuracy of our personalized OTT recommendations across platforms, genres and languages," he said.
The platform’s aim is to enable consumers to spend time watching their favourite content rather than searching it. Recent user surveys have revealed consumers’ strong need and intent to pay for bundled subscriptions that would enable them to directly stream content on a common OTT destination, given the tricky navigation between apps.
“It was only logical to transition into the aggregator space and democratize the experience of consuming streaming content," Mudaliar said.
The five subscription packs that OTTplay Premium offers are: Jhakass (offering five Hindi OTTs) Totally Sorted (eight English OTTs), Simbly South (four OTTs focused on south Indian language content), and Chota Pataka (offering five assorted OTTs). These are priced starting at Rs. 50 per month. Annual payments for these services could result in significant yearly savings compared to how much a user would pay for buying these OTT subscriptions individually. Apart from retaining original viewing quality, the platform will help users discover titles across multiple OTTs besides access to OTTplay’s curation of show ratings, reviews, interviews of stars and the latest OTT-related news, it said in a statement.
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To be sure, several emerging aggregator services have sprung up to host OTT platforms in India’s cluttered online video market.
Even though telecom operators also offer streaming video platforms as a bundled service, the arrival of aggregators like Prime Video Channels, Tata Play, and Airtel XStream Premium bode well for the reach and subscriber base of smaller players that are trying to find their feet. Platforms can focus on content as aggregators take care of product and user experience.
Among the international services on OTTplay, Hallmark produces content centred on the idea of love, FUSE+ celebrates talent, pop culture, artists, and creators, and Tastemade+ brings content around food, travel, and design, while DUST looks at science fiction programming.
“Our partnership with OTTplay is an exciting opportunity to expand our international footprint as we bring Hallmark Movies Now to India for the first time," Francisco Gonzales, senior vice-president of international distribution at Hallmark, said in a statement.
Amit Dhanuka, executive vice-president of Lionsgate, said the company’s endeavour has been to ensure that viewers are provided with a curated line-up of content for the best viewing experience. “Taking this forward, we are excited to partner with OTTplay to reach a large and diverse sector of consumers with a digitally-driven offering enabling consumers to spend more time watching than searching – this is in line with our ethos of ‘play more, browse less’," Dhanuka said.