Navigating Digital Transformation and Cloud-based Content and Supply Chains in Media & Entertainment

India’s Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry is projected to grow by 17% this year, compensating for the deficit it suffered immediately after the outbreak of Covid19. It is estimated to reach the USD 31 billion mark by 2024, with digital media firmly establishing itself as the second largest segment within this industry.

As technology democratizes the M&E space, digital transformations and cloud are enabling players within the industry to upgrade and modernize content production and distribution operations, while reducing cost and creating new revenue streams. It is also transforming audience experiences from a regional, national and international standpoint and improving engagement on the strength of data and AI.

Exploring new trends in digital content creation and how enterprises can build the right kind of technology and infrastructure to streamline distribution of content across geographies and genres, Moneycontrol Innovation Next, presented by Google Cloud, brought together some of the finest minds in the sector to share their experiences and insights. The eclectic panel from the M&E industry comprised Srividhya Srinivasan, Co-founder and Chief Customer Success Officer, Amagi Media Labs; Aditi Shrivastava, Co-founder &CEO, Pocketaces; Noor Basha, HOD, Research, ETV and  Divya Dixit, SVP – Revenue and Marketing at ALTBalaji and Chirag Sanghani, Head – Media & Entertainment, Google Cloud.

M&E sector consumers in India today are extremely active and very engaged. They are intent on interacting with the content, its creators and with each other too. They are smart, tech savvy and happy to pay for what they consume. Further, with the advent of User Generated Content (UGC), a segment of the audience aspires to become creators at scale. Setting this context, Aditi Shrivastava remarked, “With two-way interactions taking place, millions of audiences are sharing their preferences though their comments and tags and through other metrics like watch times, retention curves, etc.” With insights emerging on various fronts, her company has devised proprietary in-house tools to mine qualitative data and is using it to make a spectrum of data-backed decisions for itself and its clients. “This data, together with creativity, gives media companies the opportunity to create a very important flywheel that maximizes the success rate of future content that you put out,” she said.

Another emerging opportunity in the M&E space is the regionalisation of content. Noor Basha explained, “Apart from Tier 1 markets, which are slowly reaching saturation point, Tier 2, 3 and 4 towns have begun to offer visible growth opportunities for the next decade, due to the growing digital revolution. This is lifting upcoming OTT platforms, beyond the like of Netflix and Amazon. We have seen many regional OTT platforms emerging. At the same time, major players have started dubbing regional content or producing original content in regional languages. This is a reflection of the growth of regionalisation and its importance.”

In this tech-driven milieu, Divya Dixit shared how ALTBalaji has been successfully convert viewers to subscribers. “Beyond carefully crafted content discovery strategies and the use of SEO, SEM, etc., we use inputs from affiliate partners and Google. We’ve also been tapping into influencer networks to sway viewers into signing up for subscriptions. Additionally, we draw on UGC content, which leads to audience engagement and thereby subscription. Essentially, there is a layering of campaigns, not one single approach. However, we ensure that once a user comes on the app, they enjoy a seamless experience so that they do not drop off at the last mile.”

As an enabler, Srividhya Srinivasan commented on how cloud enables a holistic and unified view of the content supply chain across all parts of the media business. “Today, there is a growing trend towards audiences simultaneously consuming content through broadcast networks and OTT so it’s extremely crucial to have a unified platform. Being a SAS-based cloud-based media technology platform, we enable broadcasters to come to the cloud and we provide solutions that enable them to build a live linear channel if they want. Thereafter, they can monetise it, see the analytics and fine tune them and still use our platform to deliver the content to either an OTT platform or to a traditional platform, like a DTH or Cable. All this is possible through the same system.” With most of her customers on the platform having moved from traditional storage to the cloud, they are also adopting newer technologies available on the cloud.

In India, the rapid growth in digital media consumers presents an opportunity but it also bring in challenges of evolving customer expectations. To harness these opportunities and overcome challenges, Google Cloud has been offering solutions to facilitate media companies, irrespective of where they are on the maturity curve. Chirag Sanghani clarified, “Our mission at Google Cloud is to empower media organisations to transform audience experiences through innovation in content production, distribution, customer engagement and even monetisation. We’ve created our offerings with years of experience in building and running the largest media application across the globe. Our aim is to meet the customers where they are today and help them on their journey of transformation from digital opportunistic companies to truly data-driven media enterprises.”

In the media industry, there is an age old phrase – Content is the King and Distribution is the Queen. “Content still remains the King. However, as media companies shift to digital and direct to consumer models, technology has taken on the role of distribution. So, technology that powers distribution is the Queen,” he mused, adding, “And I would say, Data is God. It is highly imperative for media companies to become data-driven for even the smallest of business decisions.” Google, being the largest data processor in the world, provides customers and partners of Google Cloud the same processing capabilities which can enable them to transform into data-driven businesses.

 Moneycontrol journalists were not involved in the creation of the article.