MUMBAI: The Indian media industry, experiencing disruptions, is witnessing an increase in consumption that has been facilitated by proliferation of broadband too and over the last six years has been growing at the rate of nine percent.

According to a CII_BCG report released today at CII Big Picture Summit event in New Delhi, at 4.6 hours of consumption per capita per day, India is still behind China (6.4 hours) and US (11.8 hours), suggesting further headroom for growth.

“Unlike in developed countries, in India this growth has been additive and not cannibalising traditional media, yet. For the next several years, we expect India to remain a multi-modal market where all forms of media, including traditional media like TV and digital will continue to co-exist," the report states.

In 2012, total media consumption per capita per day was 2.7 hours which was further distributed into print (0.2 hours), radio (0.2 hours), TV (1.9 hours) and digital (0.4 hours). On the other hand, 4.6 hours consumption per capita per day has increased to print (0.3 hours), radio (0.3 hours), TV (2.7 hours) and digital (1.3 hours).

Over the past 2-3 years, the number of broadband users has become 2X (~480 million broadband users across mobile and fixed) and the data consumption has become 10X (~10 GB per user per month).

Indian media formats are primarily advertising driven and consumer costs are minimal. Unlike the US where the cost of a cable connection can be as high as $80 per month, India with $3 cost of cable per month doesn’t have the need for skinny bundles.

India is undergoing a video explosion. Indian consumers are consuming ~190 minutes of video per day per user across platforms, which has been growing at ~8 per cent over the last five years. 30+ digital platforms have been added to the wide range of TV channels. While an average consumer consumes 10-15 channels per day and 2-3 apps in any given month, the overall spectrum of platforms from a content creators/curator’s perspective is massive.

Global players are realising the importance of creating curated content, in line with viewer preferences. Players like Netflix invest aggressively to match 3X the investment made by top players like Amazon Prime and Hulu. Top 5 global players as per their annual content budget are Fox ($16.7 biilion), Comcast ($15 billion), Disney ($12.7 billion), Time Warner ($12.4 billion) and Netflix ($12 billion).