South Indian digital music and media company Divo has announced a partnership with Airtel Xstream, which offers its full catalog of Tamil films, including exclusive previews, via the Airtel Xstream app.
The Airtel Xstream app is available for free on Android and iOS and now has a new channel called Divo Movies. Service users can watch exclusive Tamil content including movies, digital previews, and multiple titles from major characters such as Rajinikanth, Vijay, Ajith, Simbu, GV Prakash, among others.
Media experts say partnerships to promote regional content make sense in a country like India, where the reach of the internet and smartphones is slowly increasing access to national new-age programming.
According to a report by Recogn, the market research arm of digital marketing agency WATConsult, released last July, about 70% of Indians will have access to the internet in their native language by the end of this year. He said that food, entertainment, and education programs are always considered best in local languages. A poll by EY said that around 21% of non-metro respondents say they would spend more on entertainment than 5% on the subway.
Even as foreign companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are gathering content in multiple Indian languages to increase reach, several internal OTT platforms have used the covid-19 block to expand their presence in the country, focusing on specific languages. as niches.
Sudipta Banerjee, chief product and technology officer, Wynk Music and Airtel Xstream App said that DIVO Movies will make available to its subscribers an abundance of premium and evergreen Tamil content.
Divo Movies on Airtel Xstream will be available as a standalone and bundled subscription, along with top-ups. The plans cost Rs 30 per month.
Shahir Muneer, founder, and director of Divo said the partnership with Airtel will provide strategic content distribution opportunities. It currently has more than 200 films and aims to add another 200 by the end of this year.
“This partnership with Airtel Xstream is a unique opportunity as it opens up Airtel’s network and telecom subscribers to us at Divo, allowing us to reach more audiences and also offer our content and content partners a new window to monetize what otherwise limits OTT terms or licenses, ”
he added Muneer.
