Mumbai: CTV is becoming the preferred choice among audiences for television viewing, with the kind of convenience and flexibility the technology offers. It is one of the fastest-growing segments in India currently and with free streaming of IPL, the trend is predicted to see a spike.

Indiantelevison.com spoke to XAxis president - data, performance and digital products, Atique Kazi  on the reach of connected TV’s, investing in it for the upcoming IPL and much more…..

On Connected TV and its reach

We are expecting the 22 million CTV connections to move to 30 million. And what it does is out of the 210 mn TV households that we have today; 30 million becomes a very substantial number. Some of our research is indicating that this 30 million now or 32 million then, it comprises of audiences, who are normally from the NCCS A and NGCS A & B ad categories. Also, some of the research indicates that the lifestyle choices and the premiumness preferences that the connected TV households have are quite strikingly different from the rest of the NCCS A and B TV households on linear television. 

Somewhere down the line, I think the fragmentation of television is happening. That provides a good opportunity for brands to ensure that they look at this not as a siloed approach, but a connected approach with the television strategy. Because people are watching connected television content which is essentially the broadcast and linear TV content  So there's a chip-off that we're seeing happening on certain audience cuts on television. We are seeing that is relatable to the data we see on the connected TV audiences as well.  

On the reach of smartphones 

There are a lot of data points out there, and a lot of classifications, how we identify a connected TV household is a large screen and not a mobile screen, it is TV-to-TV comparable. Any household which has a smart television, which is powered by a broadband connection, and has access to two or more apps, which are OTT and streaming, broadcast-quality content that, for us is a connected TV household. 

People who do chrome casting or mirroring etc., are not classified under that strain. Also, the research that we have done shows that content and ad engagement on mobile is very different from the ad engagement and content that you see in a laid-back experience in the living room. And over the years, we have seen that how TV has helped create brands, and scaled businesses, I think we need to look at connected TV also in that same lens, however, connected TV sets is the fusion of digital and linear television together. That provides additional capabilities for us to reach audiences more effectively, in a more hyper local personalised.

On Jio being the game changer in streaming IPL free

There are multiple demand sources for the connected television, and I kind of break that into the regular RnF that you do for advertisers, then you do a few impact properties and sports. So sports when it comes to connected TV is increasing. And some of the testimony was on FIFA where the report suggested that therr was around 12 million reach. I see that IPL on connected television offers an incredible and strong point of view, and audiences out there, which cannot be ignored. 

Advertisers are now thinking about strategies as to whether they take a combination of CTV and television, or do they take a combination of linear television and mobile or do they go only with CTV.  Because they're using scale across all three touch points, connected TV, mobile and linear TV. So interesting conversations and all depends upon which type of audiences the brands are reaching. What is their key goal? Is it like, being on top of the mind or is it bringing saliency or is it kind of looking at massive reach or reaches in certain audiences? Well, I think those are fundamental, primary key factors that will be considered and where then the investment should go across. 

On Linear TV 

I think the Power of linear TV for a sport is unparalleled, the distribution ecosystem, which we have seen in markets, like Australia, UK, and US have a very influential way because they actually control a certain percentage of the inventory, that the broadcasters run on through their networks to be sold by themselves. So when they look at this particular inventory, they are able to fuse the data, which is available on the setup boxes, the information that they know, and some of these players also have mobile services attached to it. So the moment they start fusing all these touch points together and when you're able to kind of split the beams or run advertising on from initiative from the setup box, I think that will explode tremendously. 

This will provide amazing options for brands to use linear TV more effectively. So big brands can actually go more hyper local with more units, and some of the new brands which wouldn't ever be able to be present on television or  be able to come on television. So for example, a big sweet shop in Kohlapur can go ahead and be present on linear TV and that's the promise of the whole addressable TV ecosystem. I personally feel that linear TV is not going to go away, it's just going to become more digitised and more addressable nature in the future.

On the vernacular reach of CTV for IPL

Genre-based targeting has always been one of the key aspects of television advertising. And it will also play a similar role in the whole connected TV ecosystem as well. There is an explosion of content in the South, content coming across from foreign countries and then localization of content in the Hindi belt as well. 

Wherever there are audiences, brands will look at really tapping into this. Also, the content that is propping in OTT in specific geographies, is allowing brands to kind of focus there because there are certain geographies where TV has been challenged due to the competition, or the number of players competing in that space. This offers options for the brands.

On cord cutters, cord shavers and cord nevers

India is actually a cord switching nation as we also have linear television access and OTT access and we keep switching between these so these are people who are cord switchers. Cord shavers are someone who are further moving away from cord switching and making much smarter choices. So if a consumer has a  base TV pack, which is coming in from a setup box, and probably now with the whole NTO, they are able to scrape off certain channels as they are available on the OTT platforms, consumers are paying the subscription and there is broadband connection. 

Now people are making smarter choice they know which type of content they want to access and where and what to pay for that. However, in India, the cost of it considerably is low, and you don't see a massive impact, but there is a certain point of discussion where this kind of affects the whole cord shaving and we've also seen cord Nevers, in the newer houses which are coming up.

In India there has been a household increases of around 1.8 per cent year on year, the new homes that are coming, are not subscribing to cords because internet and broadband is essential and the big TV gets powered. A lot of new homes which are coming through don’t even have a whole concept of cords or setup boxes and antennas etc. Smart TV penetration, we see is that 90 per cent of the TVs sold are smart televisions, but not all of them are being seen online. So because of the cost factors and the entry points have become easy, even people who do not have broadband are actually buying Smart TV and then they're connecting their mobile phones etc. But again, the expected increase in the broadband connections and the plans that Jio has and some of the other players that they have in there is quite promising for all of this old TV space to fill in, digitise and be more addressable in the future.