Keeping up with the other global direct-to-consumer services, but stealing a march on them in a critical market for the content giant, Discovery is set to disrupt the OTT landscape in India with the launch of Discovery Plus.
The company said that in research conducted across teen Indian cities, 62% of consumers indicated that they were keen to subscribe to a product that will offer interesting knowledge about the world. Additionally, research from Vidooly, indicated that interest in core categories of factual and lifestyle entertainment on YT, the world’s largest streaming platform went up by 36% contributing to an overall 70 bn views in 2020.
The new DTC offer is claimed to be able to offer what is described as ‘never-seen-before’ premium shows in over 40 genres including science, adventure, food and lifestyle. In the initial phase, Discovery Plus will be targeted at a 25 million-strong base of core TV infotainment consumers across India’s Tier I and Tier II towns, defined as those who watch over three hours of infotainment every month.
Content will be delivered in eight languages including Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali and Marathi. Discovery Plus will offer premium subscribers a large selection of never-seen-before Premium Discovery titles, documentaries, India originals and exclusive acquisitions. Free users of the app will have access to all-time favourites from the Discovery library while a unique destination titled Shorts will feature free short-form videos that will satisfy the new and emerging Indian mobile users.
Superstar Rajinikanth’s TV debut show Into The Wild With Bear Grylls will be launched first on Discovery Plus at 06:00 on March 23 much before the television premiere which is at 20:00. Discovery Plus will also exclusive videos including Behind The Scenes for Thalaiva’ s fans.
The content will be curated from the world’s most trusted content brands such as Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, BBC, TLC, Discovery Science, Discovery Turbo, ID, Food Network, HGTV, Cooking Channel, Travel Channel, DIY Network, Motortrend and VICE.
In order to further drive engagement, Discovery Plus is launching with one-of-a-kind rewards with India’s leading mobile payments app, Google Pay. Google Pay users who tune-in to the premiere of Into the Wild with Bear Grylls featuring Rajinikanth on March 23rd at 8:00 PM on Discovery can match the audio for the first four minutes of the show or the promos leading up to the show with Google Pay’s On-Air feature, and get a reward up to 100% off on the annual subscription price for Discovery Plus.
Discovery regards the launch of the new offer as a significant development for its business in India that reflects its commitment to a critical market. “The consumer is spoilt for choice in the scripted content space but doesn’t have a dedicated offering in the unscripted space – a place we intend to fill with the launch of Discovery Plus,” said, Megha Tata, MD South Asia, Discovery. “Our large global library of 300,000 hours of premium content and expertise in owning passionate communities will give us a huge competitive advantage in the digital domain.”