Viu, the streaming video leisure platform launched in South Africa in 2019 and owned by Hong Kong-based PCCW Media, has 6.1 million month-to-month energetic customers on its platform regionally.
That is in keeping with the corporate’s nation chief and chief working officer Elouise Kelly, who spoke to journalists in a webinar on Thursday.
French broadcasting large Groupe Canal+, which is within the midst of making an attempt to accumulate a controlling stake in DStv father or mother MultiChoice Group, owns 36.8% of Viu. Much like its technique with MultiChoice, Canal+ has been slowly rising its stake in Viu forward of an unbundling from father or mother Vivendi, which is able to contain a separate itemizing in London.
Viu might not be practically as giant as MultiChoice, however a close to doubling of its viewers in South Africa from 3.5 million to six.1 million within the final six years does make it a sexy purchase.
Kelly mentioned a part of the platform’s success is because of its twin income mannequin: some 70% of Viu’s income relies on promoting to viewers who watch content material on the platform without spending a dime. The opposite 30% comes from subscriptions. Subscribers get ad-free entry in addition to unique content material.
“The twin enterprise mannequin offers our customers lots of freedom and suppleness by way of how they eat our content material. We’ve had the quickest progress within the final six years and I believe we’re solely second to YouTube within the native market,” Kelly claimed.
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Viu describes its common buyer as a 34-year-old black feminine who is probably going employed on a part-time foundation, incomes round R3 500/month and residing in a family of three or 4 folks. Kelly mentioned Viu customers are usually knowledge delicate, preferring to make use of free Wi-Fi entry at work or faculty to obtain content material to look at in their very own time later within the day. Peak viewing hours are between 5pm and 10pm, Kelly mentioned.
Streaming providers in South Africa gained’t survive lengthy with out offering native content material, she mentioned. About 40% of the site visitors on the Viu platform is pushed by native titles comparable to Skeem Saam, 7de Laan, Generations: The Legacy and Viu authentic manufacturing uBettina Wethu. Blockbuster content material, largely pushed by US titles, can also be in style.
However the firm has seen some shifts within the content material market, with an urge for food for titles from Korea – so-called Ok-dramas – and Turkey rising in reputation. English subtitles are used to make them accessible to South African audiences. However the demand for international content material is so nice that a part of Viu’s technique for the following yr is to dub an increasing number of of those titles into South African languages to make them extra accessible.
Ok-drama titles on Viu embrace Dr Romantic, My Beautiful Liar and Woori the Virgin.
Whereas Ok-dramas are geared extra in direction of English audio system, Turkish content material is extra aligned with Afrikaans audiences. Kelly mentioned a part of the expansion in demand for Turkish content material is as a result of hole left by long-running Afrikaans reveals like 7de Laan reaching finish of life.
For Viu, the dubbing of content material in Afrikaans offers the corporate a chance to make use of internationally sourced content material to contribute to the native financial system by using native vocal expertise. “The Turks are doing nicely in TV manufacturing, significantly within the long-running dramas. We work with a few of the greatest dubbing suppliers within the nation and we need to be certain we don’t do our viewers a disservice in that,” mentioned Kelly.
Like most content material platforms in South Africa, piracy is a for Viu. Kelly mentioned the commonest manner Viu content material is pirated is through unlawful YouTube uploads, and the corporate has a workforce devoted to scouring the web, discovering these uploads and requesting takedowns. — (c) 2024 NewsCentral Media
