Discovery, India’s one of the leading real-life entertainment networks, has forayed into the Indian OTT landscape with the launch of ‘Discovery Plus’, a new D2C streaming app, to meet the need of a differentiated product offering premium real-life entertainment.
Priced competitively with an introductory offer of Rs. 299 per annum, the app has been specifically developed and curated for India. In the initial phase, the company will reach out to a 25 million strong base of core TV infotainment consumers across Tier I and Tier II towns (defined as those who watch over three hours of infotainment every month).
“The consumer is spoilt for choice in the scripted content space but doesn’t have a dedicated offering in the unscripted space – a place we intend to fill with the launch of Discovery Plus,” said Discovery South Asia managing director Megha Tata. “Our large global library of 300,000 hours of premium content which gets replenished every year, to nearly about 8000 hours a year, and all this content is owned by us. And a lot of that content has not been seen in India. So clearly, there is an opportunity for us to bring in more content into India, on our platform, which is talking to them in their own convenience, time and device.”
Discovery Plus will offer Premium subscribers a large selection of never-seen-before Premium Discovery titles, must-watch documentaries, India originals and exclusive acquisitions. Free users of the app will have access to all-time favourites from the Discovery library. Additionally, a unique destination titled ‘Shorts’ will feature hundreds of free short-form videos that will satisfy the new and emerging Indian mobile user looking for infotainment on the go.
The much-anticipated Superstar Rajinikanth’s TV debut show – Into The Wild With Bear Grylls will be exclusively launched first on Discovery Plus on 23 March much before the television premiere. Discovery Plus will also have exclusive videos including Behind The Scenes for Thalaiva’s fans.
The content will be curated from the world’s most trusted content brands such as Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, BBC, TLC, Discovery Science, Discovery Turbo, ID, Food Network, HGTV, Cooking Channel, Travel Channel, DIY Network, Motor Trend and VICE.
Speaking on the occasion, Discovery APAC and CFO International president Simon Robinson commented, “Globally, we are observing healthy trends from direct-to-consumer businesses and Discovery Plus, with its India focused strategy, is a valued addition. The launch of Discovery Plus is a significant development for our business in India and reflects our commitment to this critical market.”
Furthermore, in order to drive engagement, Discovery Plus is launching with one-of-a-kind rewards with India’s leading mobile payments app, Google Pay. Google Pay users who tune-in to the premiere of Into the Wild with Bear Grylls featuring Rajinikanth on Discovery, can match the audio for the first four minutes of the show or the promos leading up to the show with Google Pay’s ‘On-Air’ feature, and get a reward upto 100 per cent off on Discovery Plus annual subscription price.
Discovery Digital (South Asia) business head Issac John mentioned, “In a digital world that’s laden with hours and hours of scripted content, Discovery Plus offers a unique and untapped opportunity for us to build on the trust of the flagship brand and offer content that truly powers people’s passions across verticals as varied as Adventure, Science and Lifestyle to name a few. Over the next 12 months, the lineup includes premium content across all our key genres such as Into the Wild with Rajnikanth, Expedition Unknown, Coronavirus: The Silent Killer, Food Factory, Mythbusters, Wild Karnataka and Project Runway among many others.”
Discovery Plus will offer thousands of hours of exclusive content across 40+ genres, including Science, Adventure, Food and Lifestyle, in eight languages including Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali and Marathi. As Tata added, “Languaging will play a key role on Discovery Plus.”
Discovery has also launched a targeted marketing campaign ‘App Interesting toh AAP interesting’ to connect with consumers across the country. Discovery’s network of channels including Discovery, Animal Planet, TLC, DSPORT, Discovery Kids DTamil, Discovery Science, Discovery Turbo, Discovery ID reaches 164 million consumers on a monthly basis and all will promote the newly launched service. In addition, Discovery has planned a strong and targeted digital campaign to reach out to infotainment genre seekers.
Discovery Plus will house thousands of hours of marquee programmes featuring Running Wild with Bear Grylls, Man vs Wild, Expedition Unknown, River Monsters, Mighty Rivers, Into the Unknown, Cake Boss and many more. It will also have 4,000+ hours of content at launch spanning across 40+ genres in the language of your choice. Kids-friendly shows like Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, Crikey! It’s The Irwins, Kids Baking Championship, The Cute Ones, How Do They Do It? The Great Indian Factory and more.