iWorld
The Ormax OTT Audience Report: 2023 estimates 13.5% growth in India’s OTT audience
Mumbai: Media consulting firm Ormax Media has released the latest edition of India’s largest audience research to size the OTT universe in the country, titled The Ormax OTT Audience Report: 2023. The research, based on a sample size of 12,000 across urban and rural India, was conducted from July to September 2023.
Ormax Media released select findings of the report, which reveal that the Indian OTT audience universe is currently at 481.1 Million (or 48.11 Crore) people. This translated into a penetration of 34%. The report defines an OTT audience who watched at least one online video (free or paid) in the last one month. The report breaks down this universe by gender, age, NCCS, pop strata, states, and cities.
Speaking about the significance of the report, Ormax Media business development head (streaming, TV & brands) Keerat Grewal said, “The latest edition of our annual report reveals that after the upsurge in the Indian OTT market during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the growth has settled down at more moderate levels. The Indian OTT audience base grew 20% from 2021 to 2022, but has grown only 13.5% over the last one year, highlighting that the category is now past the peak growth phase it witnessed in the two preceding years.”
The report also reveals that there are currently 101.8 Million active paid (B2C) OTT subscriptions in India, across 36.4 Million SVOD (B2C) audiences, i.e., an average of 2.8 subscriptions per paying audience member. B2C subscriptions in the report refer to subscribers who have taken a membership directly with the OTT platform, in contrast with B2B subscriptions, which are via telecom packs offered by various operators. Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru are the top 3 cities on paid subscriptions, with more than 6 Million active paid subscriptions each.
Elaborating on the findings, Grewal said, “The extensive data in this report can help OTT platforms and associated agencies take more informed strategic decisions in areas like pay vs. free strategy, TG and market selection, content and communication strategy, revenue planning, etc. Ormax Media continues to stay committed to the idea of helping the Indian media & entertainment industry use data and analytics towards building more profitable and consumer-centric businesses.”
The full report is available by subscription for streaming platforms, production companies, media agencies and other companies associated with the OTT category in India.
iWorld
WhatsApp may soon let users to pick who sees their status updates
The messaging giant is borrowing a page from Instagram’s playbook as it pushes to give users finer control over their social circles.
CALIFORNIA: WhatsApp is quietly working on a feature that could make its Status function considerably smarter and considerably more private.
According to reports from beta tracking platforms, the app is testing a tool called Status lists, which would allow users to create named groups such as close friends, family and colleagues, and control precisely which group sees each update. It is a meaningful step up from the platform’s current blunt instruments, which offer only three options: share with all contacts, exclude specific people, or manually select individuals each time.
The new feature draws an obvious comparison with Instagram’s Close Friends function, and the resemblance is unlikely to be accidental. Both platforms sit within Meta’s family, and the company has been nudging them toward a common logic of audience segmentation for some time.
The move also fits neatly into WhatsApp’s broader privacy push. The platform has been rolling out enhanced chat protections and is exploring the introduction of usernames, which would allow users to connect without exchanging phone numbers. Status lists extend that philosophy from messaging into broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Status itself has been evolving well beyond its origins as a simple photo-and-text slideshow. The feature now supports music stickers, collages, longer videos and interactive elements, pushing it closer to the social-media-style story format pioneered by Snapchat and refined by Instagram. In that context, finer audience controls are not merely a privacy feature. They are a precondition for people sharing more.
The feature remains in development and has not been confirmed for release. WhatsApp routinely tests tools that are later modified or quietly shelved. But the direction of travel is clear: the app wants Status to be a destination, not an afterthought. Letting users decide exactly who is in the audience is how it gets there.
