Last year, the service was in the news for the premiere of its reality show Bigg Boss OTT that recorded an estimated 1.5-2 million viewers each week, with particular traction coming from 15-30 year olds. Big Boss OTT was the digital-only season of Viacom18’s popular reality show that airs on its Hindi entertainment channel Colors. The show made its debut on Voot on August 8 and was hosted by Karan Johar.
Media industry experts said that Voot, so far, has been a fringe player in India’s OTT segment dominated by Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Disney+Hotstar. However, Bigg Boss OTT as property has helped create buzz around the service.
In an earlier interview with Mint, Ferzad Palia, head, Voot Select, Voot Kids, and international business, Viacom18 had said that the platform will bank on a freemium, or mix of advertising and subscription-driven strategies to drive growth in the Indian market, where it competes with nearly 60 other OTT platforms.
Apart from web extensions of its TV properties, Palia said the platform will focus on sports as well as its slate of international programming, thanks to partners like CBS Corporation, with which Viacom had merged in 2019.
Further, while much of the work on original web shows was halted and delayed because of the pandemic, Palia said now the goal is to have one show out every month, not just in Hindi but other local languages, too. All Hindi originals, meanwhile, are already dubbed and subtitled in multiple languages.
