Bigg Boss OTT 2: More viewers, more brands, higher revenue, says industry

The second season of Bigg Boss OTT, the digital-only version of the popular reality show, is expected to have a stronger pull among brands with higher revenue options for its streaming platform Jio Cinema.

As per industry watchers, the free-to-viewing Salman Khan-hosted show will get more eyeballs this season, thus pulling in more brands. The show is already running into its fourth week. Last season, the show was behind a paywall on Voot.

“Definitely expecting higher revenues for Jio for this season as compared to last season given the host, already popular controversies and the free viewership, incentivizing advertisers to want to come on the show,” said Vedang Jain, Director, Digital Media, Prachar.

Sharing a similar view, Vishal Chinchankar, CEO, Madison Digital & Madison Media Alpha, told exchange4media, “I would love to believe that the revenues would be up by a minimum 40% compared to last year.”

“BB, as a content, is one of the top most impact properties. Over a period, a switch from TV to OTT has also been quite encouraging from a viewership point of view. The response has been quite good on Jio Cinema compared to last year when narrow-casted on VOOT, keeping in mind all BB content is free to all Jio Cinema users, I would peg its viewership to be at least 30% higher than last year on OTT,” said Chinchankar.

He further said that with Jio Cinema coming into play, ad rates were lower than last year by 10-12%, which was quite encouraging for brands.

On Bigg Boss OTT 2 being free on Jio Cinema and how it would impact the number of subscribers for the platform, he said: “It may not happen for Jio Cinema because only English content is SVOD (subscription video on demand). With Voot, I believe the paid subscribers will be integrated with Jio Cinema over a period of time.”

Jain, on the other hand, said there was definitely a sense of excitement since this OTT season was being hosted by the original host Salman Khan and not Karan Johar like the last season.

“The number of sponsors though have gone up since last year with the main sponsor Vimal staying on. We are seeing partner sponsor rates somewhere in the ballpark of Rs 70-75 lakh. Although it is interesting to note that even though this is BB OTT and not the main BB, sponsorship packages are almost at par with what Voot was quoting last year for BB,” Jain said.

He further said that Jio has definitely seen a major jump on their platform during the IPL season and having BBOTT2 right after IPL was a great strategic move to retain those new subscribers.

“However, it will be interesting to see the final report on BBOTT2’s viewership since I believe that not having the show on television might keep the viewership lower than BBH, which comes both on TV and digital.”

Another expert, on the condition of anonymity, said that keeping a marquee show like Bigg Boss open to all viewers is a key driver of subscribers for Jio Cinema as compared to Voot for which only selected people would be interested in paying to watch BB OTT.

According to Jio Cinema, in a span of just over two weeks since its launch on June 17, Bigg Boss OTT 2 has become the most-streamed entertainment property in India with over 400 million (40 crore) video views.

Bigg Boss OTT 2 has brands like Vimal Elaichi as presenting sponsor, powered by Too Yumm, and also includes other brands as special partners like Vicco Vajradanti Sugar Free Paste, Paytm, Silver Coin Chakki Atta, Lenskart and Ching’s Schezwan Chutney.