With the country “staying safe and staying home”, 2020 saw a huge shift in the way entertainment content was consumed in India, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. While binge watching never went out of style, the lockdown further cemented the digital medium’s position, as being the most popular channel of entertainment for Indians this year.
As the use of video and audio-conferencing tools increased significantly, so did faster Internet connections, giving audiences all the more reason to make the best use of the digital space.
It’s no surprise that India now has over 77 crore Internet connections with over 97% of these being wireless connections. Metros were the first-movers; however, in recent times, the Internet has shown huge growth in B and C towns as well.
The new rural India demographics on the Internet fuelled the unprecedented success of shows like Mirzapur, Paatal Lok, Bicchoo Ka Khel, Gandi Baat and Aashram, amongst others.
Interestingly, players like Netflix and Amazon catered majorly to the metros with shows like Mismatched, Four More Shots, A Suitable Boy, Masaba Masaba, Indian Matching, Bandish Bandits, Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives and The Family Man. Given the surge in small-town consumers they later extended their base with shows like Paatal Lok, Hasmukh, Betaal, Mirzapur, Delhi Crime, Panchayat and Inside Edge, among others.
But then again, India has always been more about the masses and players like ALTBalaji, Hotstar and Zee5 well understood that. While Hotstar catered to a mixed batch with shows like Special Opps, Hostages and Aarya among others, ALTBalaji with their shows Bicchoo Ka Khel, Kehne Ko Humsafar Hai, Baarish, Broken But Beautiful, Baarish, Who’s Your Daddy and Gandi Baat dominated the space and kept every small-towner glued to the screen.
Interestingly, ALTBalaji created a niche for itself in the ‘originals’ space and has emerged the fastest-growing homegrown platform, with over 60 originals to its name. Their partnership on shows with Zee5 too bore fruit as Code M, Mentalhood and Kundali Bhagya also took up a considerable space in the consumer pie. Slowly and steadily, other players in this domain including MXPlayer and Ullu are making a decent attempt and show immense promise.
During the pandemic, we saw a dramatic shift in digital usage with new emerging trends and impacts on all aspects of work and life. But one trend that’s here to stay is definitely the digital explosion! With high-quality content, catering to a wide spectrum of the audience, the digital platform has something for just about everyone and these players are leading the way in a fast-growing industry.