Challenge
Company
AAO NXTAAO NXT is an entertainment OTT platform from Odisha, India, built to be the flagship of East India’s film industry. It streams premium regional films, originals and microdrama to an audience of more than 50 million viewers globally, with a long-term focus on technology and a world-class premium viewing experience.
Website: aaonxt.com
Headquarters
Odisha, India
Industry
Media & Entertainment
Key Products used
On-Demand Video, Video Player, Video Data
About AAO NXT
“We have a sizeable audience in our market and cater to more than 50 million audiences globally. We have some of the most stunning and modern content, as well as the best-in-class technology and world-class premium viewing experience,” says AAO NXT founder and CEO Kaushik Das.
“We continuously improve our technology. We have a long-term perspective, which has helped us emerge as the top regional OTT platform”.
The decision to build a Regional OTT platform
“During the pandemic, the OTT segment witnessed a significant increase in viewership, the media business thrived across the country, but our local content struggled to gain popularity, and the industry faced a tough time”.
“We have a culture that is centuries-old and exceptionally rich. We have so many universal stories, stories that stay with you, which the world has yet to see. But we’ve lagged in investing in video content that brings these stories to the world. I wanted to change that” says Kaushik.
“We made the decision to build an OTT platform that would serve as the flagship of the East India’s film Industry. From my extensive experience in the media industry, I knew that to effectively compete with our competitors and distinguish ourselves, we needed to provide an exceptional experience to captivate our audience”.
The challenge with building it ourselves
“We wanted complete control over the look and feel of the video experience, and overall, the audience experience for our subscribers. As we began to explore, there were many decisions. How do we go about hiring engineers with video expertise to build a platform of this scale and fitting our vision. How do we balance getting a content creation and distribution effort off the ground and scale that. Both are heavy lifts,” adds Kaushik. “We had to manage our bandwidth and resources for quick time to market”.
Kaushik is not alone. It takes a group of video experts to stream online video that performs well. The video spectrum is incredibly diverse and evolving. And video developers are hard to find, train and retain. It will take significant investment in hiring, building, and experimenting to do it the standards modern audiences expect. Time and money do not essentially take business and technology risk off the table.
“This made me explore outside tech solutions more seriously”.
Vendor evaluation: expertise and people
“We evaluated many vendors. While many had some video experience, I didn’t feel they had a handle on full end-to-end video publishing, storage, and delivery system for web and mobile. Not to mention a realistic understanding of the SVOD and AVOD business model. It was hard to nail everything down in one place” said Ram Patnaik, COO of AAO NXT.
“The discussion with FastPix team was different. They had a complete picture of the video streaming, viewer experience and importantly monetization. They were able to fill gaps and help us make choices and avoid some choices. And their end-to-end video solution was ideal for us to get up and running without the engineering and execution risk,” says Ram Patnaik, COO of AAO NXT.
“What was also great about with the FastPix team is it felt like we were all working together. They felt like part of our team, not just vendors. They were with us every step of the way, from brainstorming to execution. That has been great.”
