Media

MX Player has 100 partners, 175 mn monthly active users in India: Karan Bedi


Entertainment app MX Player has rolled out its first 5 MX Original Series that will go live starting February 20, 2019. The ad-supported video on demand platform will stream premium content for free. MX Player, which claims to have 70 million daily active users, hosts a large repository of over 100,000 hours of licensed content from leading content creators and partner platforms such as ALTBalaji, TVF, Arre and SonyLIV, among others. 

With an aim to deliver entertainment for every mood, MX Player has unveiled its new brand ideology – Everytainment. Elaborating on the same, Karan Bedi, CEO, MX Player, said, “Everytainment is the core of our product and combines not just all forms of entertainment, but also caters to content for every season, every reason, every occasion and most importantly, every mood. We showcase films, web series, sports and news, and with our original programming, we are exploring various new genres spanning satire, drama, comedy, chat shows, historical sagas, biopics, big ticket reality shows and more across multiple languages. The new music tab on our platform will allow viewers to stream music, powered by Gaana on the same app and has made us the one stop shop for all things entertainment.” 

Bedi added that the company’s vision is to build a platform that caters to every entertainment need of the discerning viewer, starting from playing a video in any format, to watching stories across every genre and even listening to music for every mood. 

The 5 new MX Original Series include:

Aafat – A story about 5 women who are breaking stereotypes while struggling to get married in Delhi’s arranged marketplace

Hey Prabhu – It traces the story of a Twitter god, who has to navigate the offline troubles of life

ImMature – A TVF creation that is a coming-of-age story about the many first adventures of 3 young boys in school

Lots of Love (in Tamil and Telugu) – A story of four friends and how a trip changes their lives

Famously Filmfare – Which will see well-known actors from the regional space like Priyamani, Chinmayee, Bhavana Balakrishnan, Surveen Chawla, Abir Chaterjee and Amruta Khanvilkar turning host for different regions through the series. 

The platform has been built from scratch with a simple and intuitive interface and offers sub-one-second latency to its viewers, which translates to instant streaming. By using massive scale datasets, MX Player has created a world-class recommendation and personalisation engine that has been built in-house. Additionally, MX Player has built better compression algorithms to optimise streaming on the top of global compression standards like H-265. To further enhance the user experience, the app comes with features like adjusting volume and screen brightness on the go while streaming, vertical trailers for special shows and offline playback feature, which allows users to download content and view without an internet connection. 

In an interaction with Adgully, Karan Bedi, CEO, MX Player, speaks a length about the growth strategy for India, key partnership, the brand idealogy of Everytainment and much more. 

You have started off with a very enviable viewer base. Why did you feel you needed to foray into original content now?
We have got 100,000 hours of content that we have aggregated from different platforms and content providers, but we felt that there are a lot of stories that are still out there that need to be told. Everything that we have shown you today, ranges from urban millennials, mass female focused, nostalgic schooldays, historical fiction, and political thrillers. Speaking about our scale, we are basically representative of the population. So, we will continue working with partners and turning content on board as well telling stories that need to be told. 

Who are the partners that you are working with?
We have partnered with SonyLIV, ALTBalaji, TVF (The Viral Fever), Arre, and Dice Media, to name a few. We have over 100 partners and over 150 live channels on our platform. Now, Gaana has joined the platform as the official music partner. 

A lot of these partners have their own video streaming platforms. Will content sharing be the norm and if so, what will give one platform the edge over another?
We think there is a big need for the kind of content we are creating. We feel most platforms are looking at a specific kind of content and we are differentiated with our content and offer a very wide range. The next thing is that our scale is next to impossible to achieve, it is a massive scale. We have 175+ million monthly active users and 75+ million daily active users. It is very hard for platforms to get here. So, we are able to provide a market expansion opportunity to a lot of content owners. 

You are already at such a massive scale. What are the growth areas you are focusing on now?
There are 450 million 4G smartphones in India and as I said, we have 175+ million monthly active users. We are growing at 50 million users a year. So, we have a lot of brand recall and people are loving the app. Thus, we are well on our way and why shouldn’t everyone have it? 

What are the platforms that MX Player is available on?
We have got mobile and web; we are loading on all kinds of Smart TVs. We are going on Amazon Fire TV, ChromeCast, and Apple TV. Most of these are open platforms, so there will be some level of partnerships. 

How many hours of content are you targeting by the end of the year?
It is very difficult to quantify now, we already have over 1 lakh hours. I don’t think the right way to look at it is how many 1,000 hours we can add; the right way to look at it would be to ask what kind of consumption are we looking at? Our aim is to be No.1 in terms of consumption. 

What is the average duration of your shows and what is the optimal mix according to your data?
The length of each show varies from 5-6 episodes to 10 episodes. Duration also varies from 20-minute to 45-minute long episodes. People are used to watching the half-an-hour and one-hour formats, so usually 20-25 minutes and 45 minutes are the formats that we look at. But we are doing a lot of experimentation on shorter formats and intermediate formats. That is the beauty of being in the VoD space, you can actually do different things and keep testing. 

Since your viewers are already on the platform, will your promotional strategy only be for shows?
We are actually doing both. We are getting our existing viewers to watch the newer content as well as licensed content, and also getting newer users on to the platform. Like I said, 175 million viewers in a 450-million strong market; why not get more? 

What kind of advertiser interest have you seen and which players have shown the most interest?
We have already got 30 big advertisers on the platform. We have got Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, Google, Godrej, Nerolac and many others. These are big blue-chip names that are already on the platform. They are partnering with us on both shows as well as Video on Display. 

One of your shows is in 7 languages, what is your reason for coming up with such a concept?
We are doing shows in Tamil, Telugu, Bhojpuri, Marathi, and Bengali. Eventually, we are going to do all of it, we just need the right show and the right opportunity. 

You are one of the few players to also have music streaming available on your platform. How did your partnership with Gaana materialise?
I think we are the only platform that has music streaming. It is part of our brand promise of ‘Everytainment’ and ‘Jaisa Mann Waisa Manoranjan’. Sometimes the ‘Mann’ wants music. We are working closely with Gaana, who is powering this section. Obviously, it helps that they are a part of the same overall group. We think this is a really powerful partnership, we rolled it out recently and have seen very powerful uptake. 

A lot of money goes into building a formidable content portfolio on OTT. When do you see your efforts paying off?
It is really hard to define these things. You don’t look at that way – how many years will it take to pay off? Our aim is to invest in the best kind of content so that the audience watches it. If that happens, we are sure to make a lot of money for everybody. 

Your shows might be considered to be risqué. What are your thoughts on self-regulation on OTT platforms vs coming under TRAI regulation?
I don’t agree with that characterisation. We are a responsible platform and don’t want to offend, but millennials watch what they watch. We don’t think we are going to go over the line. We are part of this country and there is a certain cultural ethos that we intend to maintain. Recently, the High Court has dismissed a case against censorship and I think that is the right move. I think everyone is a responsible citizen here. 

From a business perspective, what would be the focus – the viewers or the content?
All the parts have to work together. You can’t just focus on the users or content or technology piecemeal. Everything goes hand in hand and I think we’ve got a great team that is making the best of this amazing platform that we have and getting it there. 

You have joined a growing list of players in the OTT space. While you have the viewers, the big question is discovery of content…
One of the things we spoke about was data and personalisation. We are doing a lot of work on that. That is going to be a key differentiator between us and a lot of people. Genuinely, recommendation and personalisation are a core strength and focus for us. Like we said, ‘Jaisa Mann Waisa Manoranjan’ – you need to figure out your ‘Mann’ and we will deliver accordingly.

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