Russian OTT services are having to adapt to new realities in the absence of Western content.
Kommersant reports that this has not just ben about finding traditional content from already “traditional” markets such as Turkey, India and China but also starting to consider films from Scandinavia and Israel and developing their own content that competes with films from Western film studios available on pirated platforms.
In the near future, in order to retain and attract an audience, OTT services may begin to enter into partnerships with video hosting sites, for example, VK Video and Rutube, and also promote subscriptions using an advertising-funded model.
Significantly, OTT services surveyed by Kommersant have reported increases in their audiences since the beginning of the year. Kinopoisk saw its rise from 8.4 million at the end of 2022 to 9.6 million in Q1 (an increase of 65% compared to January-March 2022). In Amediatek, the number of subscribers rose by 8% from January to March, while in Start it rose by 20% from January. Okko has seen “active growth in subscribers” since the beginning of the year, without specifying numbers and Wink says that in 2023 the growth rate of paid subscriptions is “higher than a year earlier”.
