Multi Screen Media’s (MSM) digital platform, SonyLIV has adopted a new paid subscription model for the movie genre. This is because the broadcasters wake up to the income potential of the digital distribution as more global viewers are accessing television content on the internet and smartphones.
The executive vice president and the head of digital businesses at MSM, Uday Sodhi, stated that a bulk of their revenues is from advertising after their content on SonyLIV. Going forward, they see a great potential in the new subscription model.
In the next couple of years, 70 percent of the overall revenue will arrive from advertising and 30 percent will be from the subscription based model, he added.
At least half a dozen broadcasters in India have put the digital platforms and some of them including Star Network’s Hotstar and Viacom 18’s Voot are free platforms. SonyLIV was launched earlier this year after Hotstar and it was a completely free platform until lately.
Sodhi added that MSM has no plans of making SonyLIV a completely paid platform soon, but a few sections on the platform will be subscription based. He added that the other genre that can be added to the paid model is sports. MSM has the rights to the IPL and it has a huge content library of the cricket extravaganza.
The first broadcaster to involve in expanding to the digital platform is Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It launched Ditto TV around three years back. Ditto TV is popular among the NRI (non-resident Indians) and it is a completely paid platform that has witnessed a steady growth of around 30 percent to 35 percent.
The overall content cost is 60 percent of the streaming and receivables cost. Ghosh stated that from an operational point, they expect to reach a poor breakeven point within a few months. The firm is looking forward to end the fiscal with revenue of Rs 60 crore and invest $5 mollion in order to beef up the digital platform.
