‘The Brand Must Come Before The Platform'

One of the few independent Indian players in the OTT space, Arré has its own platform and also works with other OTT platforms as a content provider. Sai Kumar, Founder, Arré talks to BW about the journey so far and what lies ahead. Excerpts:

 

The OTT space in India has seen significant growth. Tell us about your own journey.

We had begun this journey with the ambition of being a full-play media company focused on creating a world-class product with revenues from advertising, syndication, branded content and subscription, and that has not changed. In the last two years, what has changed is the pace of growth of the delivery pipes, due to which audience interaction and nature of data has changed. This has had a direct impact on content and consumption.

The revenue mix from advertising, syndication, branded content and subscription is fast evolving and the next few years will see the proportions change dramatically. There has been a shift from the 30 sec to the very short format content to deep-rooted quality storytelling.

This is a great place and time to be building a media company as the quality filter has come into the industry rather early, which is always a positive sign from an audience and revenue point of view.