New Delhi, India — Spurring up competition in the online video sphere, internet giant Yahoo! India, the premier digital media company, on Tuesday launched “Yahoo! Video” video.yahoo.in, a new video service that will provide users access to genuine content across multiple genres such as News, Entertainment, Lifestyle and Movies, besides offering advertisers a new revenue platform.
The move follows Yahoo India’s recent launched of Movieplex, a destination that lets users enjoy licensed full-length movies for free. However, unlike YouTube, which also features user-generated content, Yahoo! Video promises high-quality video experience, and would only offer licensed and original content from multiple genres such as news, entertainment, lifestyle and movies from 35 content producers which include NDTV, Star TV, Shemaroo, Headlines Today, PVR Pictures and Ultra, free for all Internet users in India.
In fact, speaking about competition, Yahoo! India Managing Director Arun Tadanki, said: ‘Online video demand is escalating at a rapid pace. However, a large segment of this is user generated content, which is often a rip-off of content. So, a lot of the content available is illegal and pirated’.
“We will offer users a safe heaven and piracy-free destination delivering high quality and strictly original and diverse content promising an unparalleled experience to Indian users. For advertisers, it offers an excellent opportunity to reach their target audience. We had seen that many advertisers are not comfortable placing their ads along with contents which are not licensed,” he added.
In India, Yahoo!’s biggest competitor in this sector is Google’s YouTube, one of the most popular online video sharing sites, which features user-generated content.
However, to ward off this competition, Yahoo! India has now made alliance with 35 leading content producers, including NDTV, Star TV, Shemaroo, Headlines Today, PVR Pictures and Ultra, and further plans to rope in more firms soon.
Suparna Singh, Deputy CEO and Managing Editor, NDTV Convergence said, “We are extremely thrilled about this partnership with a leading Internet brand like Yahoo!. NDTV does not believe in walled gardens in the rapidly-expanding digital space. Early analysis has shown that Yahoo! does not cannibalize our business — it provides an additional audience and a new video platform that we believe users will enjoy. Yahoo! has shown respect and understanding for real news, and we look forward to increasing our reach together.”
Yahoo! Video offers content acquired from original sources, ranging from short to full-length movies, entertainment, lifestyle, sports, providing access to an archive of thousands of videos. Also, since users will not be permitted to rip videos from the sites, all copyrights are protected, Tadanki said.
India is one of the fastest growing internet sectors in the world with an fascinating user base of 100 million. According to a BCG report on the internet, around 150 million new users will be going online in India by 2015.
Also, early this year, Google had unfurled the Intel-sponsored YouTube Box Office channel which features full length movies. The channel has already recorded over 11.5 million views in India and is the 20 most subscribed (all-time) channel in India.
Furthermore, on behalf of Star India, one of the principal partners for Yahoo! Video, Lalit Bhagia, Vice President – Digital, Star India said, “Yahoo! is the most trafficked web destination in the country reaching more than 80% of the Indian internet audience. We find the whole concept of ‘content in context’ as the major differentiator for Yahoo!’s video strategy. We believe that hosting our TV shows and News videos on Yahoo! Video will provide unsurpassable reach to our content.”
Describing the alliance with Yahoo!, Jai Maroo, Director, Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd., “Our association with Yahoo! India heralds one of the exciting possibilities and potential in the digital entertainment space. We are working together to not only cater the diverse audiences but to also provide a legal video content alternative.”
According to comScore , a global leader in measuring the digital world, reported that more than 30 million unique users in India watch online videos every month and each user watches about 58 videos a month. Besides, YouTube, the online video platform of Google has over 19 million active users as on March, 2011. Yahoo! India Network reaches to 80.5 per cent of the Indian online population with 36.5 million Unique Users across categories like sports, news, movies, mail and messenger.
Moving forward into entertaining mood, users will have access to videos in seven languages including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Tamil. The show will be driven by advertisements, Yahoo! Videos will work on a revenue sharing model, Tadanki said.