Eros Now First Partners with NBCUniversal & Introduces ‘Eros Now Prime’ – A Stand-Alone Brand to Cater to Premium Engli...
March 23 2020 - 10:17AM
Business Wire
Eros International Plc (NYSE: EROS), a Global Indian
Entertainment Company with the leading digital over-the-top (OTT)
South Asian entertainment platform, Eros Now, today announced that
Eros Now has entered into a strategic multi-year content deal with
NBCUniversal and will launch Eros Now Prime, a new stand-alone
English content offering with over 2,000 hours of programming.
Eros Now is the well-established leader in the space of Online
Video in South Asia, having access to a large catalogue of over
12,000 Films across 10 different Indian languages and over 2,000
pieces of Original Content including Long-form Original Series.
Since its inception in 2012, Eros Now has amassed 26.2 million paid
monthly subscribers and 187 million Registered Users coming from
over 150 countries and is one of the fastest growing OTT
(“Over-the-top”) digital platforms in the world.
Our strategic partnership and multi-year deal with NBCUniversal
is only the first step in our Eros Now Prime journey and provides
critical mass for our offering today and into the future.
NBCUniversal brings a vast array of programming ranging from
television series, children’s entertainment, scripted and
unscripted television series that will significantly enrich our
digital offering on Eros Now as we have seen shifts to original and
episodic viewing. Alongside current and future Eros Now originals,
our Eros Now Prime subscriber base will have access to comedies
such as the reboot of the critically acclaimed, ‘Will and Grace’,
compelling dramas such as ‘New Amsterdam’,’Belgravia’, ‘Suits’
including the spin-off ‘Pearson’ to name a few.
Breaking down the business strategy behind this approach,
Rishika Lulla, Chairman and CEO of Eros Digital said, “We have made
a number of key partnerships in the past year to enhance our
service and cement our lead and believe our partnership with NBCU
now provides an unparalleled programming proposition for our
subscribers in India and will accelerate our already considerable
growth rate. To meet the needs of our diverse audiences, we have
been segmenting our offerings and pricing plans and will now offer
premium English language content as a stand-alone option. More
importantly, this alliance marks the beginning of further
diversification of our customer base in India by offering an
unmatched entertainment experience. We are excited about the
opportunities associated with what we hope will be a productive
long-term relationship with NBCUniversal and the benefit it brings
to our current and future subscribers. Over the last 18 months Eros
has been increasingly focused on our Digital Division and we are
therefore less reliant on the Studio Division which has less
predictable quarterly performance. We have now passed an important
inflection point in our growth and profit trajectory, as evidenced
by our above 40 percent Adjusted EBITDA margin for the last few
quarters. We believe our shift in strategy has helped drive a more
stable and predictable growth business for the future.”
Currently approximately 40% of India’s Internet population is
based in the Metro and mini-Metros which essentially constitute 90%
of the English-speaking population in the country. The core
proposition and service offering by Eros Now has previously skewed
more towards “Middle India” and Tier 2, Tier 3 cities. However,
with the upcoming launch of ‘Eros Now Prime’, the overall content
offering will be more diverse and further strengthened across the
country. Furthermore, the growth of English-language channels on
television following the introduction of the New tariff by TRAI has
slowed, and we saw this as an opportunity to be able to grow
audiences on a stand-alone digital service. A large part of the
work we are doing with Microsoft on dynamic language and voice will
allow for Indic audiences in the country to be able to watch these
shows in their native languages with ease, and hence increasing the
elasticity and distribution of Premium Hollywood content in the
country.
This approach towards content is also strategic for the
long-term growth of our business. Eros Now Prime will allow us to
focus on consumers with higher disposable incomes in the Metros and
mini-Metros, which will improve our net effective ARPUs in
India.
Eros Now Prime will be available on all existing Eros Now
platforms (including web, app and Smart TV products), which means
consumers will not need to download another application. Eros Now
Prime is scheduled to launch in June 2020 and will be available
within the monthly offering price of INR 49 and annual price of INR
399 for a period of 6 months from launch. Following this
introductory offer Eros Now Prime will be available for a
stand-alone price of INR 79 per month and INR 799 annually.
Our strategic partnership and multi-year deal with NBCUniversal
represents our important first step in English language content
offering through the upcoming launch of Eros Now Prime. We are
planning to enter into more content agreements with additional
partners to augment and build our English language content offering
over the coming quarters. All content from our Hollywood content
partners will be packaged and served to South Asian audiences under
Eros Now Prime, and the brand will to continue to invest in content
and marketing.
Eros Now launched its first sub-brand, Eros Now Quickie,
in December 2018 and the upcoming launch of Eros Now Prime marks
our second sub-brand. We look forward to launching more sub-brands
to enhance our consumer entertainment experience, which will mark a
turning point as we execute our strategy to evolve Eros Now from a
Mass Entertainment service into a Mass Entertainment Digital Video
Network.
About Eros International
Plc
Eros International Plc (NYSE: EROS) a Global Indian
Entertainment company that acquires, co-produces and distributes
Indian films across all available formats such as cinema,
television and digital new media. Eros International Plc became the
first Indian media company to list on the New York Stock Exchange.
Eros International has experience of over three decades in
establishing a global platform for Indian cinema. The Company has
an extensive and growing movie library comprising of over 3,000
films, which include Hindi, Tamil, and other regional language
films for home entertainment distribution. The Company also owns
the rapidly growing OTT platform Eros Now. For further information,
please visit: www.erosplc.com.
About Eros Now
Eros Now is Eros International Plc’s On-Demand South Asian
Entertainment Video Service accessible worldwide to viewers across
internet enabled devices including mobile, web and TV. With 12,000
plus Movie titles, Music Videos, Television Programming and others
Eros Now caters to more than 186.9 million registered users and
26.2 million monthly paying subscribers worldwide with the promise
of endless entertainment Product features, such as video in HD,
multi-language subtitles, movie downloads, and high-quality
original drama series differentiate the Eros Now entertainment
offering. To see, watch now: www.erosnow.com.
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Mark Carbeck
Chief Corporate and Strategy
Officer Eros International
PLC mark.carbeck@erosintl.com +44 207 258 9909
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