SWITCHING CHANNELS

TATA PLAY IS COUNTING ON ITS OTT AGGREGATION PLATFORM BINGE TO BOLSTER ITS FALLING NUMBERS. BUT IT'LL BE A WHILE BEFORE THE NEW KID IN TOWN CAN STOP THE COMPANY FROM BLEEDING

- PRERNA LIDHOO

'TATA SKY-ISKO laga dala, toh life jinga la la.’ (Once you get Tata Sky, your life is on the right track). This popular jingle from an old Tata Sky ad was crucial in powering the direct-to-home (DTH) broadcaster to pole position in the DTH space. While it has retained the position with a market share of 33 per cent, the new rendition of that jingle is slightly different; it starts with Tata Play after the company rebranded itself in January 2022.

In the fast-paced business of entertainment where the battle for dominance is relentless, Tata Play has taken a leap of faith with its over-the-top (OTT) content aggregation platform Tata Play Binge, launched for all customers in October 2022. “It’s both charted and uncharted [territory] for us,” Harit Nagpal, MD and CEO of the company, tells BT. (More on that later.)

But first, a little background. Analysts estimate that while the TV industry’s DTH segment will grow by just around 3-4 per cent in the near term, its average revenue per user (ARPU) will grow by 6-7 per cent. According to financial services firm Elara Capital, the DTH market will grow only slightly, while a major proportion of growth will come from households with connected TVs and free-to-air channels in the next few years. Further, Tata Play’s income from the DTH segment dropped 7 per cent, from ₹4,567 crore in FY22 to ₹4,240 crore in FY23, per data from Tofler. This is why diversifying into the OTT aggregation model makes eminent sense for it. “We started working on this platform about three to four years ago. We knew we had to deliver a different customer experience,” says Nagpal.