‘If
you
are
watching
cricket
and
don’t
want
to
leave
the
screen,
you
could
check
the
menu
and
order
through
Zomato
(or
any
other
app)
from
a
small
part
of
your
screen.
That
is
what
we
are
working
towards.’
A
new
idea
for
television
was
announced
on
Tuesday.
Dor,
a
43-inch,
Rs
10,799
TV,
offers
24
streaming
apps
such
as
SonyLIV,
Amazon
Prime
Video,
Disney+Hotstar,
and
over
300
channels,
with
a
single
subscription
and
sign-on.
These
are
free
for
the
first
month.
For
the
next
11
months,
you
pay
Rs
799.
After
that,
the
price
changes,
depending
on
how
many
apps
you
want
to
keep.
You
could
opt
for
free
channels
and
YouTube,
and
not
pay
anything.
Dor’s
search
works
across
apps.
For
instance,
you
could
look
for
a
Shah
Rukh
Khan
film,
or
an
action
film,
or
a
comedy
across
every
app
on
a
single
screen.
“The
idea
is
to
help
viewers
to
stop
searching
and
start
watching.
We
are
building
our
own
Apple-like
ecosystem
for
content
discovery
and
eventually
everything
that
goes
with
it
(e-commerce,
advertising,
etc),”
says
Anuj
Gandhi,
founder
and
CEO,
StreamBox
Media.
Its
main
product
is
an
operating
system,
Dor,
which
powers
the
eponymous
TV.
This
could
be
licensed
to
any
TV
manufacturer.
StreamBox
is
majority-funded
and
owned
by
consumer
electronics
firm
Micromax
Informatics
along
with
Nikhil
Kamath
(Zerodha)
and
Stride
Ventures
(a
debt
fund).
“The
whole
TV
ecosystem
is
very
fragmented.
You
buy
a
TV
separately,
you
buy
different
apps,
a
dish
or
a
cable
connection.
Our
idea
is
if
the
whole
consumption
pattern
has
to
evolve,
then
everything
has
to
come
together
and
work
seamlessly,”
says
Rahul
Sharma,
co-founder,
Micromax.
Dor,
which
launcheD
on
December
1
on
Flipkart,
could
just
be
the
trigger
the
stagnant
smart
(Internet-enabled)
TV
market
needs.
For
over
a
year
now,
India
has
been
stuck
at
50
million
smart
TVs.
Of
this,
only
35
million
are
truly
connected
—
that
is
they
use
the
Internet
to
watch
all
types
of
video.
That
translates
into
an
audience
of
roughly
168
million
people.
If
smart
TVs
are
to
revolutionise
video-viewing
and
monetisation
the
way
the
mobile
did,
they
need
to
reach
all
of
India’s
900
million
television
viewers
(in
over
200
million
homes),
and
all
the
523
million
people
watching
video
online,
going
by
Comscore
data.
That
is
when
broadcasting,
streaming
and
user-generated
video
would
blend
into
one
seamless
video
market.
Currently,
the
Rs
70,000
crore/Rs
700
billion
(ad
plus
pay
revenue)
television
and
the
Rs
31,000
crore/Rs
310
billion
streaming
business
operate
in
silos.
“India’s
smart
TV
homes
are
concentrated
in
higher-income
households.
There
is
a
price-point
question,”
says
Daoud
Jackson,
senior
analyst
at
UK-based
research
and
advisory
firm
Omdia.
Most
43-inch
TVs
cost
anywhere
between
Rs
15,000
and
Rs
50,000
each.
Add
subscriptions
to
premium
apps,
that
is
another
Rs
1,500
a
month.
Dor
then
talks
to
a
whole
middle
segment
that
is
consuming
billions
of
hours
of
video
on
the
mobile,
say
analysts.
As
it
becomes
available
in
more
sizes
and
at
retail
outlets,
Gandhi
expects
the
brand
to
hit
2
million
sets
in
sales
in
two
years.
The
CTV
advertising
challenge
The
price
advertisers
pay
to
reach
every
thousand
viewers
on
Connected
TV
(CTV)
is
twice
that
on
a
mobile
phone,
according
to
data
from
Lodestar
UM,
a
media-buying
agency.
This
is
because
through
the
landing
page
of
a
Samsung
or
LG
TV,
they
can
reach
audiences
who
were
lost
to
pay
OTTs.
LG
Channels,
which
offers
70
popular
channels
on
LG
TV,
announced
a
partnership
with
Moloco
for
streaming
ad
solutions.
The
10-year-old
Silicon
Valley-based
Moloco’s
machine
learning
platform
has
been
used
for
advertising
in
e-commerce,
gaming,
streaming,
and
on
CTVs.
“When
affluent
audiences
watch
premium
content,
it
is
more
on
CTV
than
on
the
phone,”
says
Siddharth
Jhawar,
country
manager,
India,
Moloco.
The
fill
rates
(amount
of
ad
inventory
being
used)
on
CTV
is
a
massive
80
per
cent
compared
to
40
to
50
per
cent
on
the
mobile.
“On
the
mobile,
you
click,
go
somewhere,
follow
up,
and
buy.
All
of
this
can
be
tracked.
The
CTV
proposition
is
very
powerful
but
advanced
use
cases
like
targeting
a
relevant
consumer
cohort
or
measuring
outcomes
of
an
ad
campaign
are
tougher,”
says
Jhawar.
Gandhi
reckons
that
“marrying
multiple
screens”
is
precisely
the
challenge
Dor
addresses.
For
instance,
“If
you
are
watching
cricket
and
don’t
want
to
leave
the
screen,
you
could
check
the
menu
and
order
through
Zomato
(or
any
other
app)
from
a
small
part
of
your
screen.
That
is
what
we
are
working
towards,”
says
he.
The
second
challenge
is
“for
broadcasting
or
streaming
firms
to
be
able
to
give
away
good
quality
premium
content.
They
might
prefer
not
being
disintermediated,”
says
Jhawar.
Does
that
explain
why
Netflix
is
still
not
on
Dor?
Gandhi
says
a
deal
with
Netflix
is
in
the
works.
“For
most
SVoD
(subscription
video-on-demand)
brands,
the
challenge
is
churn.
If
there
is
convenience,
it
helps
manage
churn,”
says
he.
Sky
Glass
from
Sky
TV
in
the
UK
is
a
similar
example
though
it
is
not
clear
whether
it
worked.
In
five
years,
half
of
India’s
200-odd-million
TV
homes
are
expected
to
be
connected.
If
Dor
—
either
through
its
own
TV
or
via
other
brands
using
its
operating
system
—
manages
to
contribute
to
a
chunk
of
that,
it
will
help
bring
the
promise
of
CTV
closer
to
fruition.
