Major broadcasters like Star, Sony Pictures Network and Zee Ltd are investing to acquire sports content for their digital platforms.
With consumers shifting preferences from appointment viewing to the digital medium to savour live sports, company honchos in the business note that such strategic investments help in not just consumer acquisition but also advertisers into its fold.
The just-concluded Vivo IPL had attracted 100 million viewers into Star-owned digital platform Hotstar. Star had acquired the digital rights for IPL for an estimated ₹300 crore in 2015 for the coming three seasons.
Key broadcasters such as ESPN and Star Sports currently control big-ticket rights.
Scale up infrastructure Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan said as India is a pre-dominantly mobile market, the company is also looking to scale up the digital viewing infrastructure. “Despite bandwidth constraints, the Indian consumer is still opting for digital as a medium of choice. Currently, the OTT space is under-served but we see it growing,” he said, adding that tournaments reach on Hotstar has doubled with consumption coming from top 10 cities. He said total IPL watch time on the app has gone up by 60 per cent over 2015.
As per available data, the IPL reached around 27 million viewers in 2014 on starsports.com. In 2015, it touched 41 million viewers. Before 2014, the digital reach of the tournament was in the range of 16-18 million.
Asked if the digital platform had tantalised advertisers as well, Mohan said that the company had bagged sponsors and advertisers for its digital platform.
Sony Pictures Network too, is scaling up its digital platform. The company says it is looking at multi-sports clusters to bring consumers into its digital platform.
Prasana Krishnan, EVP and Business head, Sports Cluster, Sony Picture Network, said the company’s aim was to explore sports beyond cricket, besides having a year-long programming content with multi-sport clusters.
Asked if the company is looking at the linear medium or even the digital, Krishnan said it is betting big not just on television but also on digital platform
SPN has broadcast rights for LaLiga, Serie A, UEFA Euro 2016, Copa America Centenario, 2018 FIFA World Cup, exclusive broadcast rights of Premier Futsal, ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event, among others.
Last week, the company acquired the digital and broadcast right of third Indian Open World Ranking Snooker tournament.
As per industry estimates, about 10 per cent of the media and entertainment’s industry’s ₹55,000 crore of ad revenue is raised from sports programming.
“Live sports viewership peaks when the game is on. Consumers are opting for the digital platform as it provides convenience of watching it on a hand held device,” Uday Sodhi, EVP and Digital Head, Sony Pictures Ltd.
Industry watchers also note that the digital platforms are likely to pave the way for pay-per-view viewership in India and have a significant impact on subscription revenues.
Karthik Nagarajan, National Director - Social Media & Insights, GroupM, pointed out that companies have realised that the digital platform is for the long haul.
He said that while companies are looking at consumer acquisition through unique content, advertisers are rallying their might behind such platforms as has the reach and bandwidth.