Eros Now leverages football fever to increase paid subscriber base

Eros International | Company reported loss at Rs 28.49 crore in Q1FY21 against profit at Rs 27.05 crore, revenue dropped to Rs 41.68 crore from Rs 183.52 crore YoY.

In a bid to stay ahead of the competition, video OTT platform Eros Now has launched Eros Now Betz, an app created for football lovers hooked to the ongoing FIFA World Cup.

Eros Now is a unit of Eros International Plc. 

Available across Android and Apple, the app will allow users to be a part of the on-going FIFA matches and predict results. With Eros Now Betz, users will be able to earn points for every correct prediction that they make while the matches are being played in real-time.

The app has been developed in collaboration with Dab Gaming Ltd, a London-based company.

Leveraging the football fever, Eros Now is rewarding the winner, after every match, with a free month of content accessibility to the platform’s movie library of 10000+ films offering a wide range of Bollywood and regional language films, music videos and originals.

“We are creating engagement layers to boost our native product which is streaming films. The free subscription that comes as a reward for Eros Now Betz will give one access to our film library and we are hoping this free one month access will prompt a lot of users to be a part of our paid subscription programme,” said  Ali Hussein, COO of Eros Digital.

According to Ali, Eros Now paid subscriber base is expected to double over the next 12 months to approximately 16 million.

But Eros Now is not looking to jam the content offering with content in all formats. “Our content will expand only in the form of films. According to our internal survey the majority of active users on our platform finish a movie in two sessions and that’s where our repeat viewership also comes from. We will increase the array of films on offer to meet our paid membership target,” added Hussein.

The platform recently launched its first worldwide direct-to-digital original film, Meri Nimmo, with Aanand L Rai. In addition, over the next year, Eros Now is planning to launch a stable of feature films, made- for digital originals films and over 20 original episodic programs, all of which will be available exclusively only on Eros Now to paid subscribers.

Additionally, Eros International is also working on international theatrical co-productions. For instance the India-China co-productions -‘Panda’ by Kabir Khan, set in India and China, will be co-produced along with a Chinese studio and will be shot in both languages. The association includes Russian distribution and production company Central Partnership, an affiliate of Gazprom Media Holding, to dub films from Eros’ extensive film library in the Russian language to cater to a much larger audience in Russia

Eros has also announced two Indo-Turkish bilingual co-productions with Pana Film, one of the largest Turkish film studios owned by Turkish actor Necati Şaşmaz.