Video Streaming Makes a Splash in India

Television sets made a debut in India in the year 1975. However, all they did for the next five years was sit on the shelves of some premium retailers, if any, at that point in time.  It was in the early 1980s that Doordarshan was launched and the first ever Television series was produced in India. But, even then, the penetration of Doordarshan was severely limited to big cities and select towns.  It was in the later part of the 1980s when things finally picked pace and people started purchasing television sets. This heralded a turning point in the cultural history of the country, as the advent of the multimedia era was going to affect each and every corner of the country.

By early 2000, Hindi general entertainment channels or GECs had taken over the larger part of India’s huge subscriber base. Cable television was an instant hit and became more of a cultural phenomenon.  Over the years, there would be hardly any home without a television or a cable service subscription. After the saturation of cable, came DTH providers and then came IPTV.

However, since the past couple of years, television seems to have reached its prime. The newest thing to catch people’s fancy is the internet. Affordable mobile devices and access to internet has landed a mini TV in everyone’s personal pockets. The internet brought along with it a horde of multimedia services to consume as well as create content.

Amateur Videography was an instant hit among the youth and every other person with a camera phone in his pocket. This boom gave rise to a host of video sharing as well as hosting services such as YouTube, Dailymotion, etc. However, among this barrage of video hosting services, Google driven YouTube has managed to stay ahead of the lot with a whopping 55 million unique viewers per month from India.

It was the perfect cocktail of music videos, movie trailers and a host of different content to catch the attention of the average Indian youth. YouTube has been present in India since 2007; however, the real progress has been made in the last couple of years. All the latest music, the latest movie releases as well as episodes from mainstream Hindi GECs landed up on YouTube to provide a humongous base of content to its users.

2015 was the year when India went a step ahead and did a bit of catching up with the world.  Several independent min- series or web series web series were produced solely for free viewing on YouTube. These series opened up the metaphorical flood gates to anyone with a mobile device and an internet connection. Series like TVF Pitchers, Permanent Roommates found immense success with the urban youth, who could easily relate to their content.

But, the content was not free in the actual sense. With an increasing user base, YouTube added more and more advertisements to its videos. But, nevertheless, this had no effect on the user growth rate even by an inch. The channels behind these successful series found overnight fame and success as well as monetary gains. There is no actual disclosure by YouTube on its remuneration for uploaders who subject their videos to advertisements, but according to estimates, A 30 second ad pays a channel $1 for 25 views.

Sounds complicated? That’s because it has been made so. YouTube pays its uploaders on the basis of Ad engagement or Cost per Click (CPC) or Cost per View (CPV) model. That means the more the users engage with the advertisement, rather than the actual content, the more money a youtuber makes.

Long story short, almost every dedicated YouTube channel features advertisements and the number of views per video range in the millions. Even after handing out fat pay cheques to YouTubers, YouTube itself earns handsome profits.

That very same cash kitty and viewer base has attracted the attention of many and has invited a host of new streaming services aiming to grapes that ever increasing mobile user base and internet penetration in India. Hotstar is one such service which was launched by the media major Star. It is a collection of all the content being aired on Star owned channels on the Television.  Apart from that, Hotstar exclusively airs live cricket and other sports matches and also produces original content solely for its hotstar user base.

However, it is not truly a video streaming platform as the shows uploaded on the website are one day behind their original schedule. So, it is still in reality a hosting service and not a dedicated streaming service. But, January 2016 brought the world’s leading video streaming service Netflix for the first time to India.

Netflix sets itself apart from other streaming services in the point that it is subscription based and is not a free service. However, as a promotional offer, they are giving 1 month free access to Indian users. The subscription starts from Rs 500 and goes up to Rs 800. What makes it unique is that it is offered as a standalone subscription which can then be viewed on any device, even simultaneously.

Netflix will bring the video streaming revolution to India as its entry will cause more than a splash in the Indian media industry. And, on top of that, YouTube will finally have a worthy competitor. It is still too early to make a judgment on the relative fortune of the company in India, as these waters are untested and extremely choppy. Will the subscriber model succeed in India? Will Netflix be able to create exclusive content suited to Indian audiences? Well that judgment must be reserved for another article.

Back from the Dead- Spicejet’s Magical Turnaround Story

Exactly a year ago a feature in this series had covered the perils of airline investing and pondered on Spicejet’s remarkable fall from the heavens. In the December of 2014, Spicejet had dealt a serious blow to the Indian aviation industry by disclosing its internal troubles and abruptly scrapping all operations of the airline. The news came as a huge shock to the entire industry and the company’s shares went into a free fall.

At that point in time, almost the entire industry had prematurely declared that Spicejet was officially dead. It was widely believed that like Kingfisher Airlines, Spicejet too had fallen prey to the perilous aviation troubles. The news soon faded into oblivion and everything seemed calm. Gradually, the company even started its operations in limited capacity. But, analysts and pundits had already given the call- that Spicejet would for a long time be irrelevant in the Indian aviation scenario.

Exactly one year has passed and its time that we take stock of where the company stands right now. One might expect the company to be still dragging behind, trying to fix its operations, bring in some additional investment. Well, some of that is happening. But, the most astonishing fact is that the company is actually making a comeback.

For comparative perspective, take for example Air India, the age old airline which has been riddled with losses since its inception. The national carrier still lies there. But, Spicejet has been able to pull a feat so remarkable that it really does deserve the Best Airline award in terms of the company that did the most catching up. Spicejet has been in the profitable category for the past three months. Just 9 months after it almost went bust, forget about revival, the company is already heading towards a growth trajectory.

The company has also been boasting a consistent capacity level of around 90 percent, which is not shabby at all for an airline which nearly shut its operations almost a year ago. And this is the biggest success the company has achieved in the past one year. Managing the operations and restructuring the company is one thing, however, regaining the flyers’ confidence is a whole different ball game; and that too of the Indian flyers.

 It’s as if a favorable wind was enabling the airline to still stay afloat in the skies. Before falling apart, the airline held around 20 percent market share of the Indian Aviation industry. It lost a lot of ground, but the level of catching up it has done is phenomenal.

Spicejet’s revival is closely linked to a few important market factors which have a direct bearing on the airline’s day to day operations. The most important of those has been low oil prices. Aviation fuel prices have been at their lowest as compared to the past few years.  In addition to that, the annual increase in passengers has also added to some increased capacity generation. All in all, favorable environmental factors have given Spicejet enough leeway to get its Act in order.

The excellent show from Spicejet does not mean that they were the only ones that outshined in the entire sector. The Gurgaon based Indigo Airlines has come out on top once again this year. While Spicejet was still scrambling to cover lost ground, other airlines and especially Indigo has registered tremendous growth in their market shares and revenues.

In all of this, one man alone has been hailed as the savior and guiding angel for the airline. That person is Mr. Ajay Singh who has been bringing in a slew of changes to bring the airline back on track. Spicejet’s closing balance sheet for this year will be the sole marker for the huge improvement in the fortunes of the company and of Mr. Singh of course. The biggest asset of Mr. Singh has been his contacts in the industry which enabled him to easily negotiate with financers and aircraft leasing firms and securing terms which were favorable for the airline. An effective operation is the name of the game; yet it will not be completely moral to give the entire credit to the team currently running Spicejet. Had the crucial environmental factors not pitched in, this congratulatory story would have gone in whole different direction.

But, the good thing is that the owners do accept this humble fact and are not ostensibly buoyed by the magnanimous performance of the carrier. The best way to cope in these challenging times is to remain focused at keeping costs low and gauging all the factors before taking any path breaking decisions.  According to market forecasts, crude oil prices will be gaining normalcy in the latter half of the coming year 2016. That will mean that the new model of Spicejet will be put to the real test. However, given their current trajectory, there is not much to worry about. The carrier is back again in good hands.

The European Data Protection Regulation

The European Union has always been a staunch protector of its citizens’ privacy and protection on the worldwide web. This led them to come up with the Data Protection Directive in 1995, which was nothing but a set of rules and guidelines for companies for securing and ensuring scrupulous use of private data.

But, 1995 has come and gone a long time back. The current scenario of the web necessitates the updation of the directive. In 2006, the EU came up with the concept of The Right to be Forgotten. The rationale behind this concept is that individuals should be able to decide how their private data is stored on the web; if at all. This concept is a reflection of the European ideals which have been associated with forgiveness and the right to move on with one’s life after some mishap. For example, a criminal after having completed his term has a right to equally access the country’s services without any caveats about his past life, which banks, insurance companies and employers may find online.

But, a mere concept was not enough to rein in the big names in internet business. The EU went on a limb to openly find an Anti-Trust Allegation against Google for violating its Directive and also the Right to be Forgotten. According to the charges filed by the European Court of Justice, Google is guilty of deliberately fishing favorable search results in place of more generalized results in its search. It was also accused of favoring its own shopping results algorithm versus that of Amazon, Yelp, EBay, etc. The fact is that Google is actually guilty of all these charges, but the reason why the Court of Justice cannot nail them so easily is the thinly written privacy laws and guidelines.

There is much ambiguity in the way these laws can be and should be applied. But the EU is finally looking to change that. In a notification in January of this year, it was announced that The Data Protection Directive would be replaced by the much bolder and much more concrete European Data Protection Regulation. The change from Directive to Regulation means that it will be universally applicable to all Euro member states, without any caveats and loopholes.

Emboldened by the new regulation, The European Court of Justice has renewed its efforts to bring Google to task on the issue of data privacy. Till now, the court was single handedly going after Google. It was understandable because Microsoft, Yelp, TripAdvisor and some other search companies had been pushing the EU to ensure fair competition. But, in October this year, came a huge blow that was going to affect not just the giants of the industry, but the entire gamut of internet based companies, a major chunk of which lies in the US.

The European Court of Justice ruled the Data Sharing Pact with the United States to be illegal and invalid. The court deliberated that personal data sent to and fro through US servers is unsafe and a violation of its privacy laws. This ruling deals a major blow to all major tech companies in the United States, who would now have to look for data centers in Europe.

The entire proceedings done by the EU are truly in the favor of liberty and personal privacy as well as freedom. However, the big question that arises is why did the EU suddenly decide to be the flag bearer of individual freedom and liberty?

The short answer is that the European Union is spooked. And the thing that spooked it into action is the revelation of massive surveillance operations being conducted by the US on European leaders. In 2013, Edward Snowden leaked classified documents containing sensitive information about government snooping on European leaders, among other people. This whole scandal made the EU come into action and bolster its internet defenses by attacking the theft and handling of its data by US servers.

The result is that some 4500 companies which were till now using US servers to store data from all across the globe, will have to install separate servers in Europe to ensure that their data does not leave the continent.  Quashing of this agreement also means that sooner or later Google will also have to bow down to the EU and make the desired changes to its search algorithms.

This is a big win for the masses at a time when Net Neutrality and other Internet security issues are gaining concern. However, sadly, the rules of this regulation apply only within the European borders.  At a time when India is also being subjected to massive hacks of government and defense installations, it is necessary that the country’s leaders look Westward for inspiration and work to protect the interests of the fast growing internet population of the country.