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MUMBAI: As audiences move fluidly between television, YouTube, OTT platforms and short-form video, entertainment companies are having to rethink how they build lasting relationships with viewers. Reach and distribution remain important, but discovery, engagement, repeat consumption and the ability to package content for changing viewing habits are becoming equally significant. In this guest column, Saurabh Srivastava, COO – digital business, Shemaroo Entertainment, explores how audience behaviour is reshaping the entertainment business, why focused content propositions can build mass audiences, and how established content libraries can stay relevant across platforms and changing consumer occasions.
There was a time when getting content to the audience was largely a question of distribution. That is no longer the whole story.
People can find and watch entertainment in many more ways than before. They might sit down with family and turn on TV, or they could open YouTube and look up a song. Sometimes they stream a movie on an OTT app. Other times, with the rise of social media and short video content, they scroll through videos on their phone. They switch between these choices based on what is going on and how they feel. They also pick what to watch right then.
For companies that have lived through changes in how entertainment is made and distributed, this matters. It is more than putting content where people already go. The tricky part is figuring out what makes them pause, what keeps their attention, and what makes them come back. This is why the audience growth plan has to change too.
Reach will always matter. But a large audience does not necessarily translate into a lasting relationship with content.
Digital consumption has made it easier to understand what happens after discovery. What does someone watch next? Do they return to the same content? Do they explore another title, artist or genre? Does a piece of content become part of a habit?
These behaviours tell us more about audience relevance than reach alone.
They also show why focused content propositions can build significant scale. Not every piece of content will resonate with everyone. If it makes a clear promise and keeps delivering on what one group cares about, that content can grow a steady audience. Over time, those audiences often stick around and stay active.
Focused content can find mass audiences
Shemaroo FilmiGaane is an example of this. The channel has crossed 75 million subscribers on YouTube, built around a focused proposition: Bollywood music.
That milestone matters more than the subscriber count. It shows that this kind of content still finds its way to people, even many years later. A song released long ago can still be found. They can search for it, hear it once, share it with someone else, and then take a second look later. Sometimes they begin with a specific track they already have in mind. Then they notice a different song from the same film or the same artist. Other times they come back for a feeling of nostalgia, for a season or a family moment, or simply because the song still matches what is going on in their day.
This is an important change in the way established content can build audiences.
Some content used to rely on a set plan, a set timing, or a specific way of being released. Now people can find it whenever they want and watch or use it more than once. For companies that have large back catalogues, this opens up fresh opportunities to present well-known material to viewers in ways that match how audiences behave today.
The role of packaging also becomes important. The same content can find different entry points depending on how it is presented, surfaced and connected to other relevant content. Now it is not just about what the content says. It is also about helping the right people spot it.
The medium is changing. The content relationship is not.
This is also why I would be cautious about describing the current market as one medium replacing another.
Consumers are not necessarily making a choice between television, YouTube and OTT. They use each for different reasons. The same person can move between them several times in a day without seeing it as a change in their entertainment preference.
For content businesses, this means we have to think beyond individual platforms.
The content itself remains the starting point, but its journey does not end with distribution. How it is packaged, where it is discovered and what other content it leads audiences to can all influence the relationship that develops with it.
This is particularly relevant for established content libraries. A film, song or television property can acquire new relevance as audience behaviour changes. Some titles can drive discovery, others can generate repeat consumption, while some become comfort viewing that audiences return to over many years.
The ability to understand these different roles is becoming increasingly important.
Building for the consumer, not the platform
The entertainment business has spent years adapting to changes in how content reaches consumers. The next phase is about adapting just as closely to how consumers choose and consume it.
That means looking beyond the first view or the initial reach. It means understanding discovery, engagement and repeat consumption as connected parts of the same audience relationship.
The opportunity is not to make audiences choose one medium over another. It is to ensure that relevant content can meet them across the different occasions in which they choose to consume entertainment.
Things will keep changing in platforms and in formats. Content teams need to move along with what the audience wants. At the same time, they should not lose sight of what makes people pause, keep watching, and return.
