YouTube brings third edition of FanFest to India; reports significant growth in video watchtime

By Siddharth Aalambayan and Nash David

YouTube has started to invest big in India. And the numbers presented at an event in Mumbai was proof of the fact that India is moving at a pace which nobody could have imagined.

Presenting statistics around video consumption in India, YouTube says 400 hours of video content is put up every minute on the website. But what’s interesting is that the watchtime of video content in India has gone up by 80 percent, while mobile viewing is higher than desktop and laptop.

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Beauty videos (make up tutorials and V logs of products) are up by 135 percent, comedy is up by 100 percent and music by 92 percent. This is the third time that the YouTube Fanfest will take place in India and it’s expected to attract an audience of 5000 people on ground.

Since the online world and its videos still appears vague when compared to the conventional film fraternity, here’s our attempt at explaining it a bit.

YouTube follows the same suite as Facebook. It might not have content creators of its own, but it provides the user with a platform that enables anyone with a video camera, (even a webcam and basic editing abilities) to open their own startup. This could be their own little production house which could range from making how-to videos to have people doubling up as their parents/family (Lilly Singh aka Superwoman) to musicians doing covers of popular soundtracks. The website gets such variety uploaded (by the user) to place ads before its videos to make a profit.

A lot of the musicians that have gotten big collaborate with music labels to find their way into playback singing. Event organisers do shows and earn money while comedians follow suite to getting into Bollywood or stand-up.

Four years ago, TVF sat in a make-shift studio and shot with a crew of four for their Chai-Sutta chronicles and today Mumbai has prominent areas with their billboards and adverts, declaring their new app’s availability.

‘Superwoman’ exclaims how it’s not that as easy a road as it seems to the audience. “One needs to be consistent, be able to innovate and be fresh with every video that is put out” she said.

In a way, what she says seem perfectly fine. It also proves the fact, that YouTube stars are almost as big as our mainstream actors and actresses. North America appreciates YouTube stars more than the Indian audiences and YouTube might take time to get to the masses in the tier2 and tier3 cities, but it sure has started to influence mindsets in the metros.

“I was thrilled, especially because my picture is next to drake, but the list is pretty cool and I’m honoured to be amongst those people” added Lilly Singh in reaction to her making it to the TIME’s 30 most influential people online . You could read the entire list here .

“Producers encourage us to keep doing more on YouTube after a film deal. The power is all on the internet now” said Aadar Malik, who is part of the group that goes by the name SnG Comedy and exclaims that they have to censor a lot of their content now, since the debate about censorship has taken a public stand over the past year and a half.

We spoke to Satya Raghavan, Head of Entertainment Content at YouTube India on the rise of video content.

YouTube continues to be a parallel space to sort of add to the competition that our conventional TV or Film consuming audience base has. How long will it take for India (the masses) to fully get accustomed and aware about this medium is still unknown. Whether it could match the interest around a Salman Khan film is unknown; but, it seems to have arrived in India. And is certainly doing all it can to get there.