The past few years have been no less than a roller coaster ride for the aspiring Indian startup- Zomato. Be it the controversy of dine-in restaurants logging off from the company or the successful listing of the giant in the unicorn club, way back in 2015; the company has gone through a lot of negative as well as positive sides. Amidst the loop of those changes, Zomato has buckled up to launch a new series of 18 original shows within the upcoming three months. It is worth mentioning that with the advent of various over-the-top (OTT) content providers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Voot, Hotstar among major others, and the shifting attitudes of masses toward content-centric series/movies; India has seen a massive transformation in the OTT media service industry. Subsequently, Zomato has been the first-mover among its competitors including Uber Eats, Swiggy, Food Panda and others. The shows will be on-air from 16th of September 2019, which will be available in the newly added tab named as ‘Videos’ within the Zomato App.
Being a food-centric app, the shows that will be covered will holistically revolve around food and the relevant information provided with a tinge of creativity. The center of attraction will be India’s well-known chef Mr. Sanjiv Kapoor who will host a daily three-minutes show breaking the common food-related myths. Another creative trial opted by Zomato in this continuum is the blend of comedy and fiction in a few of these newly streaming shows. The shows will also cater to popular celebrity interviews and even a ‘sneak-peak’ into a few celebrities’ kitchens. The latter will be streamed under the name ‘Starry meals with Janice’ where the actor Janice Sequeira will visit different celebrities’ kitchens to taste their handmade cuisines. It would be exciting for people to watch something different on the backgrounds of the contemporary web series served all over the internet. Despite the turmoil Zomato faced in the recent past, this novel experiment proves the company’s spirit of continuous innovation. After all, the company’s biggest achievement to date as its inclusion in the unicorn club was a pure outcome of its innovative approach in the online food delivery world.
However, it will be worth a wait to watch a non-convention OTT provider struggling to sustain its position in this new market. This would multiply its risk especially because of the presence of world-class OTT providers like Netflix who has already taken the lead through its worldwide accepted and appreciated content. Currently, the company has approx. 1.2 million subscribers in India. On the other hand, there are a few applications like Voot, Alt Balaji, and Hotstar that have already captured a fine share of market, even more than Netflix (approx. 3 million subscribers of Hotstar, for instance) as there is no subscription fee associated with them. This again creates hope for Zomato’s video streaming market as initially the company provides the service for free. At the end, whatever turns out to be the aftermath of this footstep; it is definitely going to add more heat to this already competitive market.
