On the 24thof March a highest-ever 19.7 crore Indians tuned in at 8 p.m. to watch our Prime Minister announce the first-ever nationwide lockdown. For the first time, the hustle-bustle of anything and everything that we took for granted from live shows to movie theatres were bolted and shut. Confined to our homes we saw an evolutionary landscape of how Indians coped up making the new normal, normal. Quarantined and bored, consumers took to Television which saw an obvious increase in news related content and children binging on their favourite shows. The other predictable rise was growth in online entertainment content. According to the IBEF (Indian Brand Equity Foundation), the OTT sector in India witnessed a 30% rise in the number of paid subscribers between March and July 2020. The most significant behavioural change came from the growing acceptance of video conferencing platforms in these times providing much professional and social solidarity. This meant that the lines between real-world and virtual interactions had begun to blur. Live video streaming emerged as the white knight for music festivals and events, opening up a whole new possibility. The role of digital has been critical in these times; it has been an enabler and has empowered people as they negotiated these troubled times. Here are 6 trends that capture the journey of 2020:
1. Rewind, Rerun and Reincarnation: With shootings of the regular sitcoms on hold, channels were forced to look into their vaults to fill up time slots. Doordarshan’s decision to re-telecast the Ramayan series after 33 years pretty much reincarnated the channel. DD put up a Tweet stating that the episode aired on the 16thof April 2020 had 7.7 crore people watching the show, marking a new world record and creating television history. The early days of the lockdown saw families bonding over the Ramayan, Mahabharta and Shri Krishna. This popularity was driven not just by nostalgia but also by popular phrases from the series finding their way into chat windows through stickers and memes. It proved that quality content is timeless and ageless.
Quality of content > Language of content: While receiving the Golden Globe, Bong Joon Ho the director of Parasite said, “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” Over the last year, Indians woke up to this reality. The year saw foreign language content topping the list of binge-worthy shows with Money Heist, Dark, Kingdom and W ruling the IMDB ratings. Korean dramas and K-pop content too have found a special place in Indian subculture. Quality content trumped language barriers.
3. Rise of desi content: A flavour of “vocal for local” was also seen in content that found its liking with the Indian audience. While the crowd favourite Mirzapur saw a successful second season, shows like Patal Lok, Jamtara, and Scam 1992 caught the audience fancy. These shows were able to show a spectrum of cultures and a myriad of characters from the countryside to boardrooms. Colloquially flavoured storytelling gave OTT platforms much artillery during the stay at home days. Some interesting numbers shared by the IBEF stated an increase of 83% daily active users on Amazon Prime and a subscriber surge for ALT Balaji. According to App Annie data, in the period between March and August, ZEE5 registered 86% growth in the number of app downloads. The watershed moment was when Delhi Crime won at the International Emmys this year, it marked the coming of age of homegrown content.
4. Digital releases: Bollywood saw a string of first-ever digital releases like Gulabo Sitabo, Dil Bechara, Shakuntala Devi, Laxmmi Bomb, Bhuj and Ghoomketu. In fact, Disney+ Hotstar now has a multiplex tab on the app which premieres Bollywood movies. Indians were starved for fresh movie content and this led to OTT platforms acquiring new users on the back of digital releases. However, only a few were able to excite the audience and see commercial success; OTT flops also raised questions on the quality of content acquisitions. Bollywood and Hollywood biggies stood behind theatre owners and postponed the release of some major 2020 releases like Wonder Woman 1984, Tenet, Radhe and ’83. With the movie theatres opening up there will surely be a lure for consumers to flock to big screens but only for releases that merit the risk. Theatres will continue to be the first preference for movie releases, but the digital release trend seems to be here for good.
5. Live sports was the rarest of gems: With major sporting events being either cancelled or postponed, 2020 saw the sports fan starved for content. The England Vs West Indies cricket series being played to an empty stadium, was the most-watched cricketing event on Sky Sports UK even more than the 2019 Ashes. The trend continued for the Indian Premier League as well which was a roaring success and in terms of viewership and was the most successful IPL ever. Even the Indian Super League – Football witnessed growth in viewership over last year. The value of live sporting events has never been more than it was this year.
6. Rise of independent music: The start of the year set a tone for the independent music scene with Prateek Kuhad’s ‘cold mess’ making it to Barack Obama’s ‘2019 yearend list’. 2020 saw some refreshing new music making it to regular streams of listeners from independent artists like Ritviz, The Local Train, Divine, Taba Chake, Lifafa and When Chai Met Toast to name a few. The Spotify RADAR program that promotes emerging artists did a world of good for those artists who got playlisted. The pandemic forced music gigs to be reinvented, the virtual avatar of the NH7 weekender concluded with a star-studded line up of International and Indian performers. Live streams on Instagram accounts of artists was common parlance this year. International broadcasting concepts like ‘Broiler Room’ and ‘Cercle’ seem to have sprouted in India in 2020, the coming years surely look exciting for music lovers.
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