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The Next Decade Will Belong to Indian Stories
Mumbai: Delivering a keynote address on ‘OTT: Powering India’s Storytelling and Creative Ecosystem’ at the FICCI Frames 2023 convention, Prime Video India country director Sushant Sreeram said, “The coming decade belongs to Indian stories, with streaming enabling expansion of linguistic palette and content diversity.” With this statement, he was referring to the fact that Indian content is being loved by critics and gaining fans worldwide, even as it continues to break new grounds within the country. He also emphasized the impact of streaming services on the Indian media and entertainment industry, noting their role in taking Indian stories to a global audience. By offering convenient and easy access to the finest Indian content, OTT players have made Indian entertainment accessible to viewers worldwide.
During the session, Sreeram highlighted that 25 per cent of the audience of Indian titles on Prime Video comes from outside India. Citing the recently released Amazon Original Series Farzi as an example, he stated that the show was released in 37 languages globally and streamed by viewers in 170 countries and territories over the launch weekend itself, in addition to entering the top 10 trending lists on Prime Video in multiple countries. He iterated that entertainment is now becoming borderless with streaming services like Prime Video expanding the linguistic palette of viewers. “Today, over 60 per cent of the customers on Prime Video stream content in 4 or more languages while 50 per cent viewership of local language content comes from outside the home states,” he said.
Sreeram also spoke about democratization of Indian entertainment. He said, “The entertainment industry in India has become a unifying force, bringing together different regions and cultures through the power of storytelling. It has also given storytellers the broadest reach to audiences within and outside the country. It has revolutionized the way content is created, accessed, and consumed, providing viewers with a diverse range of pan-Indian and global content. This democratization of storytelling has been gratifying to both witness and support.”
He identified three areas that will give further impetus to the growth of the Indian creative economy, with streaming acting as a #forceforgood for India. First, public-private partnerships will play a more pivotal role. Groundbreaking collaborations such as the recently announced collaboration between Amazon India and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) to provide holistic support to Indian creators and talent, by way of exposure, skills and capabilities trainings, masterclasses, internships, and scholarships, are all critical steps in this journey. Second, alliances and accessibility are great accelerants to the creative ecosystem – be it through preferred devices, subscriptions, payment instruments, interface languages and such, or via deep alliances and collaborations among studios, creators and streaming services. Prime Video through Prime Video Channels and Prime Video Mobile Edition, in addition to the widest device coverage, ensures that customers can easily access their favorite content at their fingertips. Third, the rise in disruptive collaborations between storytellers across geos and cultures will further push the creative boundaries. The international Amazon Original spy-action thriller Citadel is a perfect example of this. It’s a global spy franchise with interconnected stories that traverse the world.
Summing up, Sreeram said, “The next 10 years will be the decade for Indian stories, Indian storytellers. Borders and languages are no longer a constraint. Great stories will find their moment under the sun. We are at the cusp of a breakthrough. We have already seen early signs of it with our run at the Academy Awards earlier this year. That’s just a precursor for us.” He further added, “At Prime Video, we have had a journey that has placed us as one of the contributors to the acceleration we have seen. Today, I call upon everybody across the industry to take big bets, grow this category responsibly, provide a platform to stories that are all around us and of course think customer backwards. Always believe that it’s still Day 1!”
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Barc India, Nielsen launch Barc | Nielsen One Ads, a unified cross-media ad measurement tool
JioHotstar to deploy cross-screen measurement during T20 World Cup 2026
MUMBAI: Broadcast Audience Research Council India and Nielsen have joined forces to launch Barc | Nielsen One Ads, a cross-media measurement system designed to give advertisers a unified view of advertising performance across television and digital platforms.
The new framework combines Barc India’s linear television viewership data with digital audience measurement from Nielsen One Ads. The result is a single dataset that measures advertising reach and frequency across four screens: linear tv, connected tv, mobile and computer, while removing duplicated audiences across devices.
The move comes as India’s media landscape grows increasingly fragmented, with advertisers struggling to reconcile data from multiple platforms. The joint system aims to provide a single, deduplicated picture of campaign performance and audience reach.
“This marks a defining moment for cross-media ad measurement in India,” said Barc India chief executive Nakul Chopra. “Barc | Nielsen One Ads brings together television and digital screens in a unified system, enabling advertisers to understand their true reach and incremental impact across the entire media ecosystem.”
Nielsen chief product officer Akhil Parekh, said the collaboration addresses a long-standing challenge for advertisers. “Brands have had to stitch together fragmented data to understand how campaigns perform. A single, deduplicated view across screens is something the industry has needed for years.”
The first deployment will take place on JioHotstar, which will use the system to measure advertising during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 hosted by India and Sri Lanka. Barc India said the framework could expand to include more broadcasters and platforms if industry demand grows.
Among the system’s key features are unified four-screen reporting, advanced reach deduplication to eliminate duplicate viewers across devices, and detailed metrics including average frequency, gross rating points and demographic performance.
