The future of entertainment industry is going digital. YuppTV, an over-the-top (OTT) content player that distributes TV channels through the internet, is redefining TV experience for the Indian diaspora on the foreign shores. Said to be the world’s largest OTT provider for Indian content with 250-odd channels in 12 languages, YuppTV offers a unique feature, called Catch-up TV technology, whereby viewers can watch TV content from the past seven days and never miss their favourite shows.
Uday Reddy, founder and CEO of YuppTV, stresses that his venture has grown to be a leading player in converged OTT live TV and Catch-up TV solutions. He set up YuppTV with a mission to make it simple and instant for broadcasters to deliver live TV, Catch-up TV and movies anytime and anywhere to any internet-enabled device.
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Birth of an idea
The idea for YuppTV came about when Uday saw the dearth of Indian entertainment content for the Indian expat community living abroad. This led him to find a digital entertainment content destination for them. Starting out with just two channels when it was established, the service now allows users to watch their favourite channel or a movie from a catalogue of more than 200 live TV channels and 5,000 movies across a dozen Indian languages on a single subscription and 100+ TV shows in 14 languages.
YuppTV has over 25,000 hours of entertainment content catalogued in its library, while nearly 2,500 hours of new on-demand content is added to the YuppTV platform every day. “Our vision is to liberate entertainment, to make TV accessible to all, with a rich video viewing experience,” he says.
As part of its plan to enhance TV viewing experience, real time recommendations are provided to the viewers on most trending live TV channels using advanced analytics. YuppTV has also introduced timeshift technology that enables broadcasters to provide viewers capability to pause and rewind live TV for up to two hours.
According to Uday, YuppTV is currently ranked number one internet Pay TV platform for South Asians living abroad and also one of the largest internet TV platforms from premium content availability in India. It has about 12 million mobile downloads with 4.2 user rating on Android. Besides, it has launched its on-demand movie streaming service, YuppFlix, for expats.
Making inroads
Last year, YuppTV raised $50 million worth of funding from Emerald Media, a pan-Asian platform established by leading global investment firm KKR, wherein Emerald Media acquired a significant minority stake. YuppTV had earlier raised its series A round of funding from Poarch Creek Indian Tribe of Alabama. Till date, it has invested over $24 million for this venture.
YuppTV service is accessible on multiple internet-enabled devices—smart TVs, smartphones, tablets and also on the web. The YuppTV app can be downloaded on any Android and iOS devices.
As part of its expansion, YuppTV is in the process of developing original content. It has launched YuppTV Originals, that is aimed at providing its users the content developed in-house. “We disrupted the entertainment sector with technology. We are now moving towards the content space as well by association with content development firms,” he adds.
