YouTube dominates CTV streaming in India with 4x viewership growth in 3 years
YouTube is the most streamed service on connected TVs (CTV) in India, with viewership growing fourfold in the last three years, said YouTube CEO Neal Mohan during his first visit to the country after being appointed CEO of YouTube in February last year. “Creators and artists have business strategies, writers’ rooms, and production teams. They’re creating programs that people love to watch. And along the way, they’re redefining entertainment, news, and education. And they’re driving growth on YouTube. YouTube is the most watched streaming service on CTVs here,” Mohan said at YouTube’s annual Brandcast event held in Delhi. The platform’s evolution as a television destination was underscored by the fact that the number of top creators receiving the majority of their watch time on the big screen has surged by over 400% in the past three years. “Creators are continually innovating to produce worlds of content that foster community and allow fans to explore what they love,” Mohan added. Mohan emphasized the extraordinary growth of Indian creators, with over 11,000 channels boasting more than a million subscribers—a 50% increase year-over-year. “Creators in this country are doing more than just sharing their stories,” Mohan said. “They’re sharing Indian culture with the entire world.” YouTube Shorts, a 60-second video format which made its global debut in India in 2020, has surpassed a trillion views, said the CEO as he highlighted the global impact of Indian content creators. “Indian creators are making videos inspired by local trends that go on to define global culture. YouTube is number one in reach and watch time in India. And we just passed a huge milestone. Shorts, which we first launched in India, now have trillions of views here,” he said.
Key statistics he stated during the Brandcast event:
Over 11,000 Indian YouTube channels with over a million subscribers
The number of top creators with majority watch time on TV increased by over 400% in three years
YouTube is the most-watched streaming service on CTVs in India
YouTube Shorts is the most used short-form video platform in India
82% of YouTube-connected TV viewers in India prefer YouTube over linear TV
Psychomatics: a new frontier in understanding AI
AI has made remarkable advances, with LLMs such as ChatGPT which can surpass human performance. But the challenge is to understand how they work. This lack of understanding of sophisticated AI systems makes them less reliable, open to biases and ethical implications. In order to understand how LLMs work, researchers have come up with a novel, multi-disciplinary framework called psychomatics. This approach aims to bridge the gap between artificial intelligence and biological intelligence by combining insights from cognitive science, linguistics, and computer science. Psychomatics is a combination of ‘psychology’ and ‘informatics’ and offers a comparative methodology to explore how LLMs acquire, learn, remember and use information to produce their outputs.
Meta & Google secretly targeted 13-17 year olds with ads
Meta and Google secretly targeted 13 to 17-year-olds with Instagram ads on YouTube, violating Google’s own policies against advertising to children, according to media reports. Google reportedly used a category labeled “unknown” in its ad systems to disguise the targeting of younger users. This category includes individuals whose age, gender, or other demographic details are not specified, allowing advertisers to reach a broader audience. Despite policies introduced in 2021 banning targeted ads based on the age, gender, or interests of users under 18, Google staff allegedly exploited this loophole. Reports indicate that Google could determine with high confidence that the “unknown” group included many younger users. Spark Foundry, a subsidiary of Publicis, is said to have collaborated with Meta and Google to run this campaign in Canada from February to April, and trialed it in the US in May. The campaign aimed to expand internationally and promote additional Meta services amid declining ad revenues for Google and Meta’s younger users shifting to TikTok.
Quick commerce eating into market share of kiranas, not ecommerce
Delhivery’s CEO, Sahil Barua, shared his views on quick commerce and the e-commerce market in India. He believes that 10-15 minute deliveries are sustainable only for groceries and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). Barua added that these quick timelines may only be viable for short-term for other categories as the true costs become evident. Barua mentioned that Delhivery is launching a network of shared dark stores to facilitate 2-4 hour deliveries, but the company will avoid instant deliveries. Regarding Delhivery’s recent performance, Barua said that revenue growth has been slow due to market conditions and competition, but the company has returned to profitability in the April-June quarter. Barua was optimistic about the next 6-9 months, predicting growth despite potential volatility. He also commented on the overall e-commerce outlook, suggesting that while the festive season might bring 15-18% growth, it’s unlikely to be a breakout year. On the topic of quick commerce, Barua noted that it primarily affects FMCG and Kirana stores rather than the broader e-commerce market. He pointed out that quick commerce is fueled by significant financial burn and questioned its long-term sustainability.
78% of Indian consumers prefer human customer service support when shopping online
Almost 78% of Indian consumers prefer human customer service support when shopping online, according to an EY report. While 61% consumers find AI driven product recommendations extremely beneficial, data breaches are the primary cause for concern among Indian online shoppers. 84% consumers have made purchases based solely on the recommendations or promotions of influencers as per the recent EY Future Consumer Index (FCI), which included responses from 1,000 Indian participants within a worldwide poll. A significant 77% of Indian consumers express profound concern about the possibility of data breaches when shopping online, while 73% worry about their private information being disclosed. Consumers are drawn to follow content creators on social platforms primarily for the quality and authenticity of the content. In India, influencers have gained a significant amount of popularity with 81% consumers following some social media influencer, blogger or vlogger. In stark comparison, only 45% of global respondents admitted that they follow a social media influencer. 60% of Indian consumers find products recommended by influencers extremely trustworthy as compared to 27% globally. Brands recognise that influencers have the power to form and shape purchase decisions. According to the report, a whopping 84% of Indian consumers have bought products solely based on an influencer’s recommendation or promotion. 75% of consumers acknowledged that they prefer to shop online and only visit stores which provide an exceptional experience, in contrast, only 41% of global consumers feel the same. In the last six months in India, 51% of the consumers have downloaded a retail app compared to 31% globally. The most common frustrations include receiving damaged goods (21%), inadequate customer support (20%), and obstacles in processing refunds (19%).
Prasar Bharati to share 65% of OTT ad revenue with TV channels
Prasar Bharati has invited applications to onboard linear satellite TV channels for streaming on its OTT platform for a one-year period. TV channel feeds will be streamed on the OTT platform under a revenue-sharing agreement, where 65% of the net revenue generated from advertisements will go to the channel and 35% to Prasar Bharati. Net revenue for this purpose is defined as revenue earned from the channel after adjusting all costs borne by Prasar Bharati for the respective channel, such as transcoding cost, CDN cost, and commission of the ad agency hired for ad insertion, said Prasar Bharati in a notification. Broadcasters wishing to place their channels on the OTT platform must provide an SCTE-35/ad marker-enabled feed that signals the start and end times of advertisement breaks. Prasar Bharati stated that advertisements on the OTT stream will be inserted at appropriate points based on the SCTE-35 markers. If Prasar Bharati cannot fill the entire ad duration, the remaining time will be used for promos of Prasar Bharati and the respective streaming channels.
67% subscribers cite relatability as reason to subscribe to news
Google, in partnership with Kantar, released a new research report titled, “The Indian News Consumer: Willingness to Pay and Key Drivers” at the third edition of the Google News Summit. The study incorporates qualitative and quantitative data from over 2000 respondents and nine languages. The insights aim to equip publishers with the knowledge to navigate the digital landscape, capitalize on reader revenue opportunities, and foster sustainable growth, particularly in local language markets. Shedding more light on the findings of the research, Biswapriya Bhattacharjee, Director – B2B and Technology, Kantar, said, “Indian digital news consumers increasingly crave immersive, more relevant news consumption experiences, creating a prime opportunity for premium offerings. However, the price-sensitive nature of the market necessitates a diversified revenue strategy. What also comes out strongly is that in order to expand the user base, a meaningfully different and well-communicated value proposition is essential.”
Key findings are:
67% of current subscribers in the study cited “reliable content” as a primary factor in their decision to subscribe.
Among those who haven’t subscribed, the top three barriers cited are “overwhelmed by too many plans/prices” (39%), “limited budget” (35%), and “lack of flexible payment/cancellation options” (33%). This contrast underscores the need for publishers to clearly articulate the value proposition behind each while addressing pricing and flexibility concerns.
Once again, user preferences vary interestingly by language. The study consistently reveals that “news in the preferred language” is a highly valued content element across various language groups, including Hindi (67%), Bengali (75%), Tamil (63%), and Gujarati (79%).
Both Kannada and Tamil speakers are relatively more receptive to subscriptions. They are also open to sharing first party data and micro-transactions in form of either pay per content or mini access pass.
In contrast, first party data is likely to be the way to unlock value with Bengali and Malayalam speakers. This diversity provides publishers with a wider range of revenue models to explore.