Premium content and collaborations are two of the most important aspects for growth of streaming services and telco providers, enabling them to expand and provide the distinctive requirements of customers worldwide.
That’s according to Rohit Jain MD, Managing Director of Lionsgate for South Asia and Networks – Emerging Markets Asia, who spoke at the recent Asia Video Industry Association’s OTT summit. In a fireside chat with PLDT First Vice President and Corporate Communications Head Cathy Yap-Yang, Jain said Lionsgate Play had the most fantastic growth trajectory within the last few years. Over-the-top of OTT is a means of providing TV and film content over the internet, suiting the requirements of individual customers. India-based Lionsgate Play is a subscription streaming video unit of Starz.
As more people embraced the digital lifestyle in a pandemic setting, demand for video streaming services has grown exponentially. In early 2020, demand for streaming picked up as government-mandated lockdowns around the world kept people at home, increasing the need to secure their entertainment fix through streaming. “We are now present in about 56 countries and still counting, with close to 28 million subscribers choosing us. So clearly our model and our growth is sort of validated and, for us, the growth in emerging markets and Asia, starting from India, has been very very interesting,” Jain said.
He observed that it’s a very different region when compared to the rest, particularly the US and North America. The expanse of languages and the nuances of content are very different, distribution is very fragmented and multilayered compared to other parts of the world. Most of these markets in Asia are mobile-first which make them quite a fascinating market.
In the case of the Philippines, PLDT and its wireless unit Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) have partnerships with OTT services like Netflix and Viu to bring content to Filipinos, driving mobile data consumption. Smart’s Signature SIM-Only Plans are now exclusively bundled with a Netflix Mobile Plan subscription; while its GIGA K-Video allows Smart prepaid subscribers to enjoy ad-free streaming and unlimited downloads of K-dramas via the VIU Premium video streaming platform.
Jain values collaboration, and with telco operations in particular. “We’re great fans of collaboration,” he said, and advised that “If there are collaborations that can give you reach, you take that immediately because at the end of the day, you just want to follow the consumer. And there are consumers in this market who would like to watch content on their Smart TV, there are people who would like to watch it on the app on their mobile, there are people who watch it on their telco app, and you just follow the consumer. But I think the 2nd thing that is most critical and I think that’s going to increasingly apply worldwide is how to collaborate with alike services, with services within the value chain so that we can meet more of the consumers’ requirements in a single stop. And requirements might be data, might be social, might be content, might be digital, might be e-wallet. Can I collaborate sort of a higher share of his requirements? And in the process, can I do this more cost efficiently? I think the world is going to collaborate more and more to make it happen more smoothly and you have to put the consumer at the center and see how we can collaborate much more efficiently.”
On differentiating their content with the multitude of other content creators, Jain pointed out that they see the world as a sort of three-tiered structure: on the first level are the global platforms which he called the large streaming pipes “our almost replacement for the large traditional broadcasters – these are your Netflix, your Disney, and your large streaming services who basically cater to the entire family. They would cater to your parents, to you, to kids, to pets, everybody. And then there’s the 2nd level players like Starz and a bunch of other platforms who basically are always catering with mass premium content but to very specific audiences. Our audiences worldwide are young and mature adults, typically the 20+ years old audience. And that sort of makes us a little complementary to the large networks, with young adults in the house, it becomes an interesting add on. And then you see the 3rd level which comprises the niche player, niche content, local players, so in that sense, I think we’re very happy that it played out for us so far. We are about very premium content but we are about playing for certain kind of audiences.”
According to Jain, Lionsgate’s expansion in Indonesia is a very exciting undertaking: “We’ve been very excited about what we’ve seen in the last three months. We just went live last week in Indonesia, with Telkomsel and many more partners to come. You should see us launching in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh sometime in April. So, we’re quite excited. So far, so good. Long journey to travel.”
Jain is looking to bring Lionsgate’s content next to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, markets which he finds have enormous untapped potential for streaming services.
