With an increasing focus on regional language content, Balaji Telefilms-owned OTT platform ALTBalaji has launched regional stand-up comedy in multiple regional languages including, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati amongst others, reports Television Post. The portal also reports that the entire library of local language content will also have English subtitles for better understanding. Regional content to win? AltBalaji rivals like Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, Netflix, Voot, and others too are betting on regional content to reach deeper in the country, as only a fraction of the country’s population is English-friendly. In May this year Amazon’s Fire TV streaming stick had added Vuclip’s streaming service Viu as an app on its platform. Viu creates original content in Hindi and Telugu. Also, Viu recently said it will battle the space the streaming space by focusing on regional content in India, which will also deliver the next phase of growth for the company International player Netflix has been investing large amounts of money in India. The streaming service reportedly bought the Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam versions of the Baahubali duology for $4 million. The service has also been investing in independent films in regional languages. Hotstar had added 4,000 hours of Malayalam content including movies and popular TV shows across genres last year to its library. The company also appointed Mohan Lal as its ambassador for Malayalam-speaking audiences, and also ran adverts featuring Shruti Haasan and Allu Arjun for Tamil and Telugu-speaking audiences respectively. The platform has content in eight Indian languages. Early last year, online video streaming platform Spuul tied up with content providers like UTV–Disney, Yash Raj…
