It is generally believed that that the average watcher on Indian OTT platform is becoming language-agnostic. In the sense, they prefer to watch content across languages, thanks to subtitles and dubbing options.
Confirming this, the Ormax OTT Audience Report: 2022 says the Indian SVOD (subscription video-on-demand) audience watch content in 4.6 languages on an average. A large share of audience of content in the four South Indian languages comes from outside their native State.
"For example, 88% Malayalam content viewers are from outside Kerala, while 82% Tamil content viewers are from outside Tamil Nadu. The AVOD outlook on language content is more conservative, primarily because of the low presence of multi-language dubbing on AVOD (advertising video-on-demand) services, including YouTube," the report said.
The Ormax report is a follow up on its last report in which it estimated that India’s digital video audience universe was around 353.2 million, of which 31% were SVOD audience while the remaining (69%) were AVOD audience.
South India consumes more content in other languages
Dubbing has also fuelled the growth of English and other foreign language content, including Korean. 65% SVOD audience and 43% AVOD audience in urban India watch English language content, though a sizeable section among them (more than half) prefer to watch it in an Indian language via dubbing.
Average number of languages of content consumption among SVOD audience are higher in the Southern states, with Karnataka leading with an average of 5.7 languages. UP, Rajasthan, MP & Chhattisgarh rank the lowest on this measure, at an average of less than four languages.
Speaking about the report, Shailesh Kapoor, Founder & CEO, Ormax Media, said: "A lot of AVOD content is being made in India today with an SVOD lens. However, this report reveals that the formats and genres preferred by SVOD and AVOD audience are significantly different from each other."
He added: "Streaming is a fast-growing category in India, and hence, it is important for content creators and marketers to constantly upgrade their understanding of the audiences, their taste, their viewing habits, and their viewing triggers."
The report, based on research conducted across more than 6,000 SVOD & AVOD audience in urban India, is India’s largest profiling study on the streaming category, the company claimed.
It is also now established that South Indian film content is dominating in OTT as well as theatres. The success of films like RRR, KGF 2 and Pushpa clearly point to that.
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