Present in additional than 250 international locations, MX Player claims to have 300 million month-to-month energetic customers (MAUs) globally. Started primarily as an promoting video-on-demand (AVOD) platform, MX Player launched MX Player Gold – a subscription video on demand (SVOD) mannequin final yr. With over 1,60,000 hours of unique content material, the platform has recorded 56 minutes of common time spent. In dialog with BrandWagon Online, Gautam Talwar, chief content material officer, MX Player, talks concerning the platform’s content material technique for the yr on the sidelines of Goafest 2022. (Edited Excerpts)
In the previous two years, OTT has seen an increase. How has MX Player benefitted from this rise and what are the content material consumption developments you’ve witnessed?
We are a 3 and a half yr previous organisation and now we have seen phenomenal uptake through the pandemic. There has been an general consumption sample change in strategic phrases. Viewers have gotten used to watching content material sitting at house. Pandemic accelerated that motion to watching OTT very quick for the entire business. Post that, for most children, watching OTT content material stays primary precedence. Most of them are twine cutters from tv and it will profit your entire business.
What is the content material funding you might be planning in FY23 and what’s your content material technique for the yr?
We have been the primary nationwide OTT participant to speculate closely in regional languages and have produced profitable exhibits comparable to Queen and Samantar. Our funding in regional content material is strategic and has a long run purpose hooked up to it. We perceive the advantage of regional content material and given the distribution attain of MX Player – contemplating we’re second to YouTube – shoppers are already there. My theatres are already full, all I’ve to do is guarantee I give them the best content material to devour in order that I can retain them. So for us, regional languages are very essential and our content material technique may be very particular.
The general content material technique is worried, the sheer scale of the platform and the variety of viewers now we have, it’s a massive job to ship content material to them on a regular basis. For us, the constraint will not be on demand however on the provision facet. We want to make sure that the tales we’re telling them are related to them. Our content material technique will not be shifting a lot from what it has been for the final three years however we’re experimenting with some new codecs. For occasion, final month we rolled out a brand new present Roohaniyat which is a premium long-format present. While a lot of the web-series encompass 10-12 episodes, that is the primary time the place now we have launched a 52 episodes lengthy present and there are extra exhibits following this lead. We have seen that on our platform Turkish, Mandarin, Korean exhibits have seen an enormous consumption uptake and have delivered us a spike in watch time. Hence, we try to copy the long-format by giving our viewers one thing extra relatable.
MX Player is on the market in 13 languages and has 200 million MAUs in India. Which markets would you prefer to focus extra on this yr?
Our core energy is all the time going to be the Hindi talking market (HSM belt). We have very massive markets in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Delhi NCR. Therefore, most of our content material is designed for these mass viewers.
With MX Gold, you’ve got entered the SVOD market as properly. Do you now have a look at AVOD as a option to purchase new customers on the platform with an goal to transform them to paid subscribers?
Currently, MX Gold is only a characteristic to offer ad-free content material to our viewers. Our customers can watch each content material accessible on the platform, with MX Gold they only get an possibility to look at it advert free, in contrast to different platforms. As of proper now, we’re very completely satisfied being AVOD as now we have seen massive success with our userbase in addition to the watch time recorded.
In phrases of films being launched on OTT, do you imagine that sure cohorts of films comparable to edgy and area of interest, would now reasonably go for OTT launch over theatres?
I imagine films are subscription drivers as a result of there’s loads of funding that goes into films.While two years in the past films have been launched on OTT because of the pandemic, there at the moment are films which can be being made particularly for digital launch. These films have a unique narrative as they don’t carry the identical dramatic flare which films meant for the massive display do. Going ahead, there’s a risk that digital first films could later go for theatrical launch as properly.
Are you going to focus extra on creating originals this yr or buying media rights of content material? Which format brings you extra viewers?
Its a combined bag for us. Original content material is created client backwards. We create unique content material on the again of client choice information now we have gathered. Whereas licensed content material has already been made and should or could not work for our viewers. Hence, the funding in unique content material could have an incremental worth to us versus licensed content material.
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Source: www.financialexpress.com”