The OTT market in India is currently at ₹10,500 crore, including subscription revenues. This is expected to touch ₹12,000 crore by FY 2024 and ₹30,000 crore in FY 2030 with a 20 per cent growth on year-on-year basis, according toAnup Chandrasekharan, Member, CII Dakshin Steering Committee & COO, IN 10 Media. Chandrasekharan said this while addressing a session on ‘The Big Opportunity in OTT: For Films & Originals’ at CII Dakshin 2023–South India Media & Entertainment Summit organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here today.

“In the next 12 months or so, there will be a good number of web series being released in south Indian languages compared to the current number of web series that are being released today at Disney+Hotstar,” said Krishnan Kutty, EVP & Business Head, Star / Disney India for Tamil, Malayalam and Marathi.

Answering a query on why there are no manuals created and quick approvals, Krishnan said , “We receive around 150 to 200 stories every year. We don’t have a fixed pattern yet nor is there a manual or playbook for creativity that one goes by. We go by more of intuition and what excites us”.

Ajit Thakur, Co-Founder, Arha Media & Broadcasting (Aha) said, “We take one month from submission of a script to either approve or reject the same. It generally takes 18 months to write a script. There is a huge demand for original screenplays. There is a current need for nearly 60 originals every year across platforms. Producers can grab this opportunity and produce and sell it to platforms.”

“Tamil and Telugu OTT is what Zee OTT is focusing on currently and we see Kannada OTT market growing very fast. The Malayalam industry already has a steady supply of content from producers for some more time,” said Siju Prabhakaran, Chief Cluster Officer – South, ZEE5 OTT.