Your attention is the new currency for India’s streaming apps

India’s video-streaming platforms are beginning to value deeper, higher-quality viewer engagement, with watch time and total minutes viewed becoming core indicators amid plateauing paid subscriptions.

- Lata Jha

As services try better monetization, content budgets have seen a 20-50% reduction across the board.

(ISTOCKPHOTO)

As monetization gets trickier, over-the-top (OTT) content platforms are working to earn more from each subscriber—without raising subscription prices—by blocking password sharing, as Netflix has done, and by introducing cheaper ad-supported video-on-demand plans, like Amazon Prime Video.

“For us, watch time and user engagement are as important as subscription numbers. Without strong engagement, subscriber growth is shallow and eventually leads to churn. Users stay only if they find compelling, consistent content,” said Ujjwal Mahajan, co-founder, Chaupal, a homegrown streaming platform serving Punjabi, Haryanvi, and Bhojpuri content.