With an eye on OTT viewers, Tata Sky rebrands as Tata Play

Mumbai, January 25

In a bid to cater to the changing consumer habits, Tata Sky is now rebranding itself as Tata Play, as part of its strategy to focus on video streaming viewers, in addition to the traditional DTH subscribers.

“We have been a DTH operator for the past 15 years, and while we have had a good run, we have realised that over the top (OTT) services are also picking up, which is why we entered into the OTT aggregation business with Binge two years ago,” Tata Play MD and CEO, Harit Nagpal, told BusinessLine in an exclusive interaction. 

After perfecting the OTT aggregation service Binge for the past two years, Nagpal said that they are finally confident to take the service beyond their own customers and with that they sought the rebranding to expand their brand identity. “Tata Sky leveraged its market leadership in its core business to create an ecosystem of content delivery by foraying into OTT and broadband. We believe it is time for a brand identity that resonates beyond our DTH business,” Nagpal explained. 

New attractions

In addition to the rebranding, Tata Play is also rolling out an array of new offerings for its customers. Tata Play, which already has 13 major OTT platforms on its content aggregation app (including major ones such as Disney+Hostar and Amazon), will onboard Netflix starting Wednesday. In addition to this, Tata Play will also make service visits free and also remove reconnection charges. The broadband business will also be renamed Tata Play Fiber. Nagpal further added that they recently announced the Tata Play Binge Combo Packs, a bundled offering, which will provide broadcast channels and OTT apps in one integrated pack. 

Subscriber base

Tata Play Binge has 5 lakh subscribers on its platform so far, but Nagpal believes that the future market size for this business is going to be sizable. “We have kept Binge slow so far; since it is a brand new platform, it is not an easy job to create a front end, with the back end being 14 apps. We spent the last two years honing the platform, we already have half a million customers; now, we want to go above the line and show our offering we were perfecting. As for the market size, no one is really sure regarding the exact number for it; however, we know it is big and we want the largest share of it.” Nagpal believes that they are the first mover in the OTT content aggregation business to have aggregated a significant number of major OTT apps. 

For Nagpal, Tata Play’s DTH business is going to continue to remain an integral part. “It is not a case of either/or. There are 130 million homes with TV connections and that number will grow. OTT is a subset of that, both of them will continue to grow. OTT users will be TV users who will also subscribe to OTT, which is why it makes sense for us to be in both the aggregation services, and offer combined offerings.”

The logo has been created by Venturethree, London, and the campaign has been designed by Ogilvy India. The new brand identity will be promoted heavily across all touchpoints starting Wednesday and through the coming months, according to the press note. Consumers have access to 12 OTT apps (excluding Amazon) on Tata Play Binge at ₹299 a month. To access Amazon, customers have to pay an additional fee of ₹179 a month.

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