Subscriber Preference and Content Consumption Pattern toward OTT platform: An Opinion Mining

Introduction: The outburst of the pandemic has paved the way for the immense popularity of over-the-top (OTT) platforms among viewers. Furnishing an alternate medium to watch favorite shows and making it a new normal, the OTT platform has replaced the traditional entertainment platform. However, migrating from traditional television to an OTT platform is still a challenge in developing countries. Hence, the understanding of subscriber preferences and content consumption patterns becomes essential to planning and strategizing future business models. Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to examine the subscriber preference and content consumption pattern toward the OTT platform. In addition, this paper also investigates the popularity of leading OTT platforms among Indian viewers. Methodology: Data has been collected from the subscribers of three major OTT: Amazon Prime, Netflix Video, and Disney+Disney+Hotstar. A total of 1860 reviews were scraped as textual data and analyzed using the lexicon-based method. The polarity of the sentiments pertaining to the reviews of different platforms was analyzed using sentiment analysis. Furthermore, the topic modeling on the reviews was performed using natural language programming(NLP). Findings: The findings of sentiment analysis showed that Netflix and Disney+Disney+Hotstar had a considerable number of positive sentiments among viewers when compared to Amazon Prime Video. Eventually, the paper also showed negative sentiment towards Amazon Prime Video regarding streaming content, ad pop-ups, interface issue, shows, etc. Our findings help OTT platforms to determine which factors are driving this dramatic shift in viewer behaviour so that better strategies for attracting and retaining subscribers can be developed. Despite the rise in OTT platform popularity, this is the first study to investigate the content consumption pattern of OTT viewers comprehensively.