The rapid rise of OTT content, a result of quarantine and social distancing?

The COVID-19 pandemic saw a fast and powerful increase in the viewership of OTT media platforms. Recent studies show that the lockdown has acted as an active catalyst in increasing the number of subscribers of Over The Top content as people have been compelled to stay at home.

With an ever-increasing number of companies advancing work-from-home culture because of the spread of (Covid-19), a 20 percent expansion in viewership has been noticed in a few over-the-top (OTT) platforms. Pre-lockdown, most of the traffic on these websites would be early in the day when people travel to work or late at night when they have free time, and the devices that they used to stream on were usually phones. However, after the lockdown, there has a significant change in the timings and now, more content is being watched on laptops and televisions. 

The movie theatres remaining closed in order to abide by social-distancing guidelines has also contributed to a rapid increase in the viewership of OTT content among all age groups. With more and more digitization of operations to ensure both social-distancing as well as the continuation of work, online has now clearly become the new normal and is here to stay for a long time. The pandemic led to restricted movement and limited means of entertainment thus resulting in increased usage of OTT platforms. With the sudden suspension of normalcy, people have had to find ways to cope and revise everything. People who were consuming 8-12 hours of OTT content have seen an increment, people consuming 12-16 hours have increased their consumption by near four-folds and people who were watching over 16 hours, have seen an increase of over five times in their OTT content consumption

With content consumption rising, brands are making content that resonate with their buyer, in areas such as wellbeing, wellness, DIY, food, psychological well-being entertainment etc. More and more platforms are weathering the current situation by creating more content, relevant for all, irrespective of their age, occupation, sex. Interviews and surveys further showed that the most well-known classification of media being consumed on OTT stages is motion pictures and web shows.