25% consumers prefer free content on OTT

Mumbai: Nearly 25 per cent of the Indian consumers prefer to watch content on the over the top (OTT) platforms for free, says a report. OTT refers to film and television content provided via internet connection rather than a cable or satellite provider.

As many as 25 per cent of Indian respondents want to pay nothing and watch ads as a trade-off to consuming content while 25 per cent selected to pay a lower fee with limited ads, according to 2019 Asia OTT Research Report by Brightcove, a global provider of cloud services for video. The report conducted with online market research and data analytics firm YouGov.

The report surveyed 9,000 participants from across Asia, including 1000 Indian consumers noted that 14 per cent of Indian respondents would like to pay a higher fee to be free from ads and 14 per cent would like an option where they can customise their price and ad packages.

On the ads per break, 22 per cent Indians found two ads as an acceptable advertising load while 13 per cent were open to view three ads per break.

It observed that nearly 80 per cent of the Indian respondents are open to a hybrid model of reduced-price subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services with some ad funding.

"Thirty-five per cent of respondents said they might be open to a reduced monthly subscription package that serves ads depending on the price, whereas 44 per cent said they would definitely sign up, representing a potential market size of 79 per cent of respondents polled favouring this hybrid option," it said.