The Content Equation

India has been a place which always had a very limited amount of content on T.V specially and no i am not talking about quantity but the quality.The T.V shows that have been broadcasted on Indian T.V have always been kinda lame and boring soap operas without any kind of logic or redeeming quality.Now since we barely had any proper internet connection and the operators used to charge a lot of money for a 1GB of data per month, we were stuck with sub-par level content that were just repetitive garbage without any form originality.The budget was very low,the plot was horrendous at best and the acting was so bad that we could actually laugh at it!Well that is one redeeming quality haha. But we never knew that things were abut to take a huge turn.

Enter Reliance Jio,the network that changed everything. Although other operators already provided 4G LTE connections,they were very expensive and used to charge ₹250($3.62) for 1GB of data per month.This was too much expensive and did not allowed us to freely browse video content on the internet.

                      Reliance Jio commercially launched its services on 5 September 2016.Within the first five months, it gained 16 million subscribers.This was the fastest ramp up by any mobile operator anywhere in the world.They crossed 50 million subscribers at a record time of 83 days.As of may 2019, they have 323 million subscribers.They came in and just destroyed every bit of competition!They were the first Pure 4G LTE network in India and supported VoLTE and they provided their servives for free for the first 6 months!People went from spending ₹250 for 1GB per month to enjoying upto 4GB data per day for 6 months.Indian internet had a massive spike in activity between 2016-2018.When they finally started charging,it was very very cheap from the competition.I currently use a plan of 1.5GB data per day for 3 months at around ₹399($5.78).India became the cheapest Internet market in the world.This was the time for India to actually solve the equation for accessing quality content and Reliance Jio was the Formula that helped us solve it.

                                      Photo by Thibault Penin on Unsplash

4 years ago, if anyone would have told me that Netflix will actually gain any form of traction in India, I would have laughed it of but boy how the times have changed and streaming services like Netflix that used to be a dream are now a reality thanks to Jio and the massive internet access that it provided to us Indians.India finally got a chance to view different types of content from different parts of the world.The tastes of people changed and people now wanted more than before most importantly people wanted something fresh and something unique.Some of the most compelling Netflix Originals that i watched include Daredevil,Jessica Jones,The Punisher,The Haunting of Hill House,The O.A,Stranger Things(Hop-Hop-Hop),Dark,etc.India's own and largest streaming service Hotstar received a huge boost due the Internet Equation.It gave us access to not only Indian regional content but also great international T.V shows and movies specially H.B.O masterpieces like Game OF Thrones,True Detective,Chernobyl(my personal favorite of all time)!Oh and CRICKET(arrgghh)

        

And then there is Amazon Prime video, the international streaming service that gained the most from India's Internet Market. They clearly get a lot of their viewers from India.I mean their YouTube channel for Indian content has more subscribers than their main Channel!If anything, the impact of these services kept getting larger with time and these companies realized the potential power of Indian Market.Who would have thought that India will get their own originals from these International companies but here we are.Netflix India has already got Indian originals like Sacred Games,Ghoul,Lust Stories,Liela(this show is an oopsie),Typewriter,Delhi Crime,etc.Sacred Games is probably the biggest in this list. When it comes Amazon Prime Video, it also has its own set of Indian Originals like Baahubali:The Lost Legends,Mirzapur,Laakhon mein Ek,Made In Heaven,etc.Mirzapur being the most popular.Even our own Hotstar is not behind when it comes to originals which include Criminal Justice,Hostages,The Office,etc.

      All this is still just a scratch in the surface their are still so many more Indian local streaming services like Voot,Sony Liv,AltBalaji,etc that are also pretty much doing their own stuff and growing slowly.I guess most people don't think about it but they should sit down and think that how far content has come in our country.We now have too many shows to watch and most are really good.And i have not even talked about YouTube which should be a completely different beast of a topic to talk about because i think it truly shows the impact of internet growth in India.So,what do you thing about this?