Viacom18 To Launch OTT Entertainment Platform VOOT By Month-end

The Viacom18 group is all set to launch its app-based, video-on-demand service called ‘Voot’ by the end of the March, this year. ‘Voot’, which literally means ‘happiness’ or ‘celebration’, will compete with the likes of Star India’s entertainment app ‘Hotstar’ and the expensive, recently launched Netflix platform in India.

Explaining its rather late entry when compared to Hotstar, Viacom18’s Group CEO Sudhanshu Vats told BW Businessworld that the smartphone market was just about maturing with 4G beginning to make an impact, and consequently freeing up ‘space’ on 3G platforms. Data costs are coming down and payment gateways are just about maturing, he said. “We are now seeing the transition from dumb smart phones to real smart phones, and a rapidly growing market of 100 million who access videos on their phones,” Vats told BW.

Vats hopes to offer a far wider choice, which will include not only content and programmes of TV channels such as the multi-lingual Colors, MTV and Nickelodeon, but also portions and footage of TV shows that have been shot and documented but not yet broadcast. “The 70 cameras of a Big Boss show pick up 840 hours of content, of which only one hour is used. The Voot app will give a viewer an opportunity to maybe trail one specific inmate he is interested in.”

The over-the-top (OTT) platform will also include Voot originals, an interactive feature called ‘Shout’ which will display those viewers whose responses begin trending, and a special button for Voot Kids. “With kids having access to smart phones and being digitally savvy, we are paying a lot of attention to the school and pre-school market,” Gaurav Gandhi, COO of the Viacom18 Digital Ventures, said. The kids’ platform will offer non-Viacom18 shows that are popular on other TV networks too such as ‘Chota Bhim’, Pokemon and ‘Motoo and Patloo’. To ensure parental guidance for what they watch, Voot Kids has been ‘gated’ from the main Voot area. This means moving within the app from ‘Voot Kids’ to ‘Voot’ will require a pin, when activated by a parent.

Differentiating Voot from competitive platforms, Gandhi says: “The others are just catch-up TV; we are an on-demand video service.”

The monetization and revenue plan will largely be advertisement driven, but premium services for pay-per-view subscribers will also bring in money. “The current digital advertisement market is around Rs 1,200 crore and will push up to Rs 6,000 in the next 2-3 years. We hope to exploit that,” Gandhi told BW.

Viacom18 is a joint venture between the US-based Viacom Inc and Reliance Industries owned Network18. It has around 18 channels in its TV broadcast network which includes brands such as Colors, Nick, Comedy Central, MTV and VH1. The TV network competes with the Star Group, part of Rupert Murdoch-owned 21st Century Fox.