Company A is a DTH company with offerings in over-the-top content as well.

While
Company A enjoys a majority share of premium subscribers (majorly in Metros & Tier
1 cities), it also has a fairly large subscriber base in rural India. How can Company A
ensure that it remains equally relevant to the subscribers of the rural India and grow
in rural markets with dominance.
It is often difficult to provide last mile cable or mobile services connectivity owing to
operational costs and operating inefficiencies. DTH has always been popular and prevalent
in rural areas and tier-2 and tier-3 towns and cities. One interesting fact to know about is that
80% of OTT consumption comes from Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns and cities, including rural
areas with over 65% from rural areas.
As per World Bank working paper, India has halved its proportion of extremely poor people -
those earning below $1.9 by purchasing power parity a day - between 2011 and 2019. There
is major improvement in annual per capita income in the rural areas but not as much as in
urban areas. Average per capita income for rural villages and towns varies a lot especially
on basis of geography. An average farmer in Haryana earns close to 22000 Rs per month in
comparison to a farmer in Odisha who earns around 5000 Rs. Hence, the rural India
geography should be divided into regions based on their average per capita income so that
DTH services are priced accordingly, and the services are more accessible across the
diverse income spectrum.
Another important factor that would lead to dramatic growth and market penetration is
creating OTT content centred and focussed on the rural areas. Not only such content is
popular in rural areas but it is also consumed by the average consumer in metro and tier-1
cities who have rural roots. Producing more OTT contents that are relevant to specific
regions and more vernacular languages content other than Hindi would improve upon growth
in other rural regions. Such content also become popular in other regions as people are
naturally inclined and curious to know about the life and culture that is different from their
own. Minnal Murali, OTT content from Kerala based on a superhero in rural hinterlands of
Kerala reached the Global Top-10 Non English movies content on Netflix.
To increase local and more vernacular OTT content creation, one must focus on inhouse
creation and growth. We should also acquire rights and licenses to existing shows being
shown on local cable channels. The focus should not only be on traditional series and
movies but other forms of content as well such as travel vlogs, documentaries and lifestyle
& personality programming contents as well. There are many local vernacular content
creators on YouTube, and other streaming platforms whose content can be licensed and
served on OTT, such as Village Cooking Channel, popularly known as VCC, a YouTube
channel focussed on traditional cooking methods and delicacies of hinterland Tamil Nadu is
widely popular all over the world with 16 million+ subscribers.