OTT platforms reel from daily losses

Over the Top (OTT) platforms are one of the major digital mediums of entertainment. The country has been suffering from a complete internet outage, resulting in huge financial losses for industry leaders.

The Daily Star caught up with the spearheads of four major streaming platforms of the country.

Redoan Rony, chief executive officer, Chorki, said, "We were at the promotional stage of our upcoming project from the "Ministry of Love", titled, "36-24-34". It was supposed to release on Thursday. If we calculate the amount of financial loss, it will approximately be Tk 5 to 7 crore, and it is not possible to recoup them."

The uncertainty of the continuation of internet services meant heavy losses for these organisations each day. In this regard, Sakib R Khan, country head of Hoichoi Bangladesh, shared that within these days, there had been no new subscriptions. "We are a completely subscription-based platform; thus, it is obvious that without this revenue, we are suffering profusely." Sakib shared that a Tk 15-20 lakh loss has been incurred. "We were also at the dubbing stage of our upcoming content "Rongila Kitab" featuring Pori Moni, and the dubbing was supposed to end on the July 19. However, we couldn't complete it. This will affect the post-production and release date as well."

He also added that the pre-production phase of Ashfaque Nipun's "Jimmi" featuring Jaya Ahsan, is complete, and they were ready to move to the shooting floor from August 10, however, the ongoing situation will also hamper the shooting.

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Mushfiqur Rahman, chief content officer, of Bongo, stated that Bongo is only one of their multiple online platforms. "From Bongo alone, we are facing a loss of approximately Tk 10-15 lakh every day, if we add the other services, it will be around Tk 30 lakh," shared Mushfiqur. "During COVID lockdown, OTT platforms became popular and during that crisis, we received a lot of subscribers, but didn't have enough content -- but now, the scenario is completely different. This situation has made us realise that we are now helpless because we are solely dependent on the internet."

Hoping for a quick recovery from the country's current situation, the Head of Content, of Binge, Umme Khairun Islam Swizee shared that during this time they have an opportunity cost of 10,000 subscribers. One of their projects, Vicky Zahed's "Ekti Khola Janala", was supposed to release on July 18. "We have to re-promote this content and fix another release date. It is obvious that in this critical situation, people will not remember this content." She additionally informed that the promotions for "Maya" directed by Raihan Rafi and another series by Anjan Dutta have been stopped.