Date of Award

31-7-2024

Document Type

Thesis

School

School of Management

Programme

Ph.D.-Doctoral of Philosophy

First Advisor

S.Selvabaskar

Keywords

OTT, Streaming, New media, Rural consumption, Uses & Gratifications

Abstract

Over-the-top (OTT) Media Streaming Services are modern online entertainment services based on new media technologies. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, the OTT consumer base experienced exponential growth, especially in India. Currently, the Indian OTT industry is in its second growth phase, owing to increased consumption in rural India. The interests of rural consumers align with different types of OTT content, providing potential market for OTT media streaming services. Tamil Nadu is a front runner in the consumption of YouTube and other popular OTT media streaming services in the country. The Government of Tamil Nadu is making penetration efforts to establish OTT services in the rural parts of the state. There are OTT startups that are sprouting to curate only Tamil content. In addition, major portion of the population residing in the rural areas and the growing importance for the demand for regional content make Tamil Nadu as a market with huge potential. Considering all these advantageous trends, this study focusses on studying the OTT consumption status and consumer behaviour in rural Tamil Nadu.

The study aims to explore on the research questions to understand the socioeconomic characteristics and digital infrastructure accessibility that influence OTT consumption patterns among rural consumers. It aims to identify their content preferences and the gaps between desired and actual performance levels of OTT services. Additionally, the research examines the primary motives and gratifications driving OTT media consumption and their associated outcomes. The study also endeavours to develop a comprehensive model of OTT consumption outcomes tailored to the rural consumer market.

The research instrument was designed to assess the OTT consumption status by studying the socioeconomic characteristics, enablers of OTT media consumption, OTT consumption profile and pattern, OTT habitude, behavioural shift and preferences for different content. In the same way, the factors that influence the consumption outcomes were studied by developing a conceptual model by adopting the constructs of Uses & Gratification theory (UGT) and Uses & Gratifications 2.0. Purposive sampling was chosen for the study, encompassing 802 respondents across all 38 districts of Tamil Nadu.

Significant findings reveal that youngsters form the primary consuming class. The accessibility to OTT is decent but not exceptional. Consumers are receptive to freemium platforms that offer variety and they consume content with mobiles for 31 min - 1 hour/day on an average. They use bundled services and have different opinions on account sharing, and no penetration of audio/music streaming services and aggregators is observed. Consumers have different preferences for content and prefer to watch short content. Expectation vs. Reality gaps were observed in content and promotions, interface, and quality parameters. UGT motives such as relaxation, information seeking, easy navigation, and interactivity are high among respondents. Of all the consumption outcomes, WoM intention is high. Regarding Affinity, the influence of all the motives and new gratifications on Affinity were significant except Relaxation, Arousal, Social interaction, Pastime, Escape and Agency. Likewise, the influence of all the motives and new gratifications on intention to continue consumption were significant except Relaxation, Arousal, Social interaction, Pastime, Escape and

Agency. In the same way, the influence of all the motives and new gratifications on WoM Intention were significant except Relaxation, Social Interaction, Companionship and Interactivity. The research model was tested and found to have high relevance, explanatory and predictive power.

Based on the objectives of the study, the specific findings and their implications have been discussed. These results of the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents imply that there is a need for better segmentation alongside the prevailing segmentation strategies (like socioeconomic segmentation) practised by marketers. These results assessing the enablers of OTT consumption imply that despite belonging to rural areas, they have access to digital communication technologies, and the basic minimum infrastructure for accessing OTT services is available among the respondents. The level of internet access of the respondents has implications for various stakeholders such as Governments, TSPs, ISPs, manufacturers of consumer electronics (media related) and OTT market players to work towards democratisation of the ICT. The OTT consumption patterns of the study provide several important implications for stakeholders, including smartphone manufacturers, mobile app designers, content producers, OTT market players, TSPs, ISPs, advertisers, audio streaming platforms and OTT aggregators in designing strategies to improve quality and reduce the cost of smartphones, creating more user-friendly mobile apps, producing mobile-friendly content, creative subscription plans and bundled services, strategic advertising and penetration efforts. These results of OTT habitude also provide implications for the marketers to work on content optimisation, personalisation, content rating and review mechanisms. These findings of the behavioural shift underscore the significance of OTT platforms as not just sources of entertainment but also as influencers of behaviour, suggesting a huge scope for consumer behaviour research and the impact of OTT consumption on the lives of consumers. One notable finding regarding the content preferences is that people prefer to watch the content of short duration. This trend is prevalent, especially after the advent of new media. The results of the gap analysis provide various implications on adopting strategies in the areas of content and promotions, interface usage and quality. The results of Motives and New Gratifications on the Consumption Outcomes signify a lot of theoretical and practical implications.

The suggestions of the relevant findings have been categorized based on the type of stakeholders. With regard to the findings of new gratifications, adoptable business, marketing, content strategies, strategies for partnerships for OTT service providers and startups have been suggested. Business strategies in order to improve MAIN features, maintaining balance in bundling, tapping the potential of audio streaming and aggregators, improving consumption, data management, managing content piracy have been suggested. In addition, marketing strategies like socioeconomic segmentation, life stage segmentation, advertising and strategic pricing have been discussed. Content strategies like content localisation and experimentation, optimization to enhance on-the-go consumption and innovative short content creation have been suggested. Suggestions for manufacturers of consumer electronics, developing secondary markets like the mobile accessories market, cross-platform partnerships, telecom service providers and DTH operators have been proposed for strategic partnerships. Suggestions have been proposed for the policymakers regarding ICT democratisation efforts, content regulation and Government-owned OTT platforms.

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