We have to expand our thinking to get to multiple business models: Sunil Rayan

Disney+Hotstar President Sunil Rayan has said that the platform will go beyond just the ad and subscription models to look at other business models like microtransactions among others. He also said that innovation in business models is key to expanding accessibility. "Our mission is to provide access to content to as many people as possible. Rather than having two models, we have to expand our thinking to get to multiple business models," Rayan said while speaking at a media event on Tuesday.

He also said that the big growth drivers for the OTT segment are increasing smartphone penetration, and growing adoption of digital payments. A significant part of Disney+ Hotstar's subscription comes from UPI payments, he added. On content strategy, Rayan said that the platform wants to deliver quality content at scale. "It takes us 12-18 months to create a show and the pace at which we are going we have to get far more innovative to reduce those timelines without lowering the quality," he noted.

According to Rayan, OTT will go through three stages of development. In the first stage, the affluent consumers have been early adopters of streaming content. In the second stage, the OTT platforms have to create localised products in terms of pricing, and type of content. The third stage is where OTT platforms have to offer deep localisation where experience will be personalized by language and different types of content getting positioned to the user based on the experiences. He also feels that there will be a lot more diversity in content as the penetration increases.

c On direct to digital movie premieres, he said that the film companies will follow multiple windowing strategies like direct to digital, theatrical first releases, and simultaneous release in theatres and OTT.

Disney+ Hotstar is rapidly scaling up its original content slate. The platform plans to release one original show every two weeks. "Our original's journey which began in 2019 was slowed down by the pandemic. We have more than doubled our originals. We are also making regional originals and not just Hindi originals. We just launched in Tamil and Telugu and getting into a new market this year," he elaborated.

The platform will also offer diversified original content including reality original shows, comedy, health-based series, and tech-based series. Rayan also noted that cricket and sports are very important to the platform and have been a significant part of its success. He also said that strong sports and entertainment allows Disney+ Hotstar to cater to diverse audiences. "We cover different users, and we are doing multiple things to go after each of these segments. We have sports, long-form, short form and TV companion segments," he averred.

Rayan made these comments while speaking at Media Partners Asia's (MPA) APOS India Summit on Tuesday.