The 6 metros have the lion's share of the traction coming on VOOT Select: Ferzad Palia

Launched six months ago, premium over- the-top (OTT) platform from Viacom18 VOOT Select has achieved its year's targets in just three-four months.  
In a conversation with exchange4media at the launch of its fifth original show The Gone Game, Ferzad Palia, Head – Voot Select, Youth, Music and English Entertainment, Viacom18, claimed VOOT Select is by far the fastest growing premium OTT service in the country. Though Palia refuses to reveal the exact subscriber base of the platform, he says, "everyone has grown, but we have grown much faster than others.”
“We have beaten all our best estimates that we had for this year. We took just first four months to achieve what we were looking at doing in 12 months,” he says.
The Gone Game is a four-episodic series that will stream from August 20. Shot entirely in isolation during the lockdown, The Gone Game has been executed through remote direction, ingenious cinematography and limited equipment. It is directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat.
“We are launching our first show post lockdown which is completely curated and shot during lockdown. Once the lockdown came into effect, we quickly realized that it is going to be a long-term problem. Hence, we decided to come up with something innovative. Also, the technology has advanced so much that we thought if we can ‘work from home’, why can’t we ‘shoot from home’? Later, we spoke to a few of our partners and Bodhi Tree Multimedia came back to us with the concept that we co-developed together. In terms of execution, of course it was something we haven’t done before. The entire thing was done remotely and through video calls, like setting up the lightings, actors did their own makeup, did their own direction and took their own shots. It's a complete full blown show in a situation like COVID,” shares Palia.    
Speaking about the production cost, he says, “Obviously the show doesn't cost as much as a show that would require outdoor locations or a ton of crew that you would normally have on the show. We have experimented with this concept and it has turned out really well. Like I said it's obviously not even close to the cost of the show that you watch normally on OTT. But that's not really the main part of it rather it's the story itself. The quality of the show is top notch and most people who watch the show, if they do not know how it's been made, will be very surprised to know how it has been actually shot.”
Viacom18 expanded its digital portfolio by launching Voot Select, a foray into the subscription VoD services in March. The platform has launched four original shows so far along with international content and TV content on the platform. “The content has really worked wonders for us. We've had a scenario where each of our shows has gone through the roof and resonated with audiences across. We  launched four originals so far and all of them have done really well from all fronts, whether it is  critical acclaim or audience consumption. One of our shows, Asur, has been called one of the best indian web series ever made. Also our before TV proposition, 24 hours before TV, has worked very well along with our international categlouge.” 
Palia informs that a significant part of uptakes on VOOT Select has been through originals and metro cities have been the primary markets of growth. “The six metros clearly have the lion's share of the traction coming on VOOT Select. The other mini metros have also started to contribute decently,” he adds. 
During lockdown, people were at home with no fresh content available on TV and this has benefited OTT platforms as their consumption has increased during this period. Palia says consumption on OTT continues to increase even though people have started moving out and fresh content is back on TV.  He explains, “We are a new platform and very much in the growth phase. We are seeing our number of subscribers increase month on month and daily active users increasing day on day. Our time spent is at a healthy rate and that's not come down at all. So there's no indicator that it is slowing down. Actually, the lockdown has essentially worked as a big catalyst for the OTT and specially for the premium OTT.” 
With offerings such as the upcoming season of Bigg Boss being available on the platform before TV, launch of premium content in regional languages and originals like The Gone Game, VOOT Select is all set to further accelerate its growth in the next few months. 
Palia shares, “We have another original coming in September. We have another five regional originals which are already shot and edited and ready to be launched. Thankfully, we have a strong bank and a strong supply. There are a few projects which were in the work and got little delayed because of the current situations but we will make up time for those as well. The next three to four months is really focused on three Hindi originals and few regional originals, and then we have Bigg Boss too this year.” The hours of the window for Bigg Boss that will be available on VOOT Select is not announced yet. It's a window strategy, it will go first on Voot Select, then to Colors TV and later will be streamed on VOOT.
At a time when all other OTT platforms are streaming premiers of big bollywood films, Palia said for VOOT Select, the focus is on originals shows for now. 
He said, “We have not made it to go that route because we have enough of our intellectual properties in terms of originals to drop. It's not that we will never look at movie premier as we go forward. In the current time, with the amount of shows we have, that's where the real focus is right now, along with our international content and 24-hour-before TV content.”
Speaking on marketing during COVID times, he says, “ Outdoors, print and even radio were not really the mediums that we could use to reach people during this time because people were not on the roads and newspapers were not being delivered. But it's getting back into momentum now. So a large portion of our spend goes between television and digital, and it has worked very well for us and all the shows that we launched during this period.”
“We will keep analyzing it as we go along. We will recraft our strategy when things open up. In the current moment, we are focused on TV and digital.”