New Delhi, May 27 -- Video streaming platforms are enhancing their personalisation algorithms to keep viewers hooked, including with bespoke home pages, not just to get users to subscribe and discover more content but also to target ads relevant to them. Platform executives say people who visit a service even once a year or for marquee titles leave clues about themselves, such as IP address and language preferences that can be used to train the algorithm to surface personalised content. "Driving engagement and improving watch time on the platform is every platform's goal and priority," said Phanimohan Kalagara, chief technology officer, Gracenote, the content data business unit of market research firm Nielsen. "In an era where content abundance is skyrocketing-with over 582,000 shows and movies now available across leading SVoD (subscription video-on-demand) platforms-personalization has become a critical differentiator for viewer retention and subscription renewal," he said. The difficulty in navigating a vast content landscape is directly impacting user satisfaction and churn. Studies show that 48% of subscribers have cancelled a service because they couldn't find something to watch, Kalagara said. While streaming platforms have attempted user personalization and customised recommendations for a while now, these initiatives were mostly driven by foreign players. The trend is catching up with homegrown platforms, albeit with limited budgets and regional language offerings, according to entertainment industry experts. Kalagara said metadata solutions such as those provided by Gracenote, including video descriptors and personalized images, help streaming platforms serve their users better with recommendations that stand out for each user persona. In a six-month pilot with a streaming service covering a set of 1,000 titles, Gracenote's Personalized Imagery solution delivered a 11.2% increase in hours watched per visitor and a 7.7% increase in titles watched per visitor, Kalagara said. "This proves how visually personalized recommendations drive tangible lifts in engagement, boosting both platform stickiness and subscription value, ultimately helping streaming services retain viewers in a highly competitive landscape," he said. The tools of personalization Personalization is not solely about which programs to show to a user but also where the program or carousel should appear on the page for a user as well as what metadata or imagery to use for each program. The popularity of a program is another signal that platforms often use to showcase and stitch together the home page for a user. Personalization often also includes how a program is merchandized and presented to users so they are compelled to hit play on the screen. "OTT (over-the-top or streaming) platforms in India use viewing history, watch time, device type, and regional language preferences to personalize recommendations," said Russhabh R. Thakkar, founder and chief executive of Frodoh, an ad tech company. "Personalization is directly linked to user retention. If viewers don't find relevant content within the first few scrolls, drop-off rates increase sharply." However, heavy personalization can suppress content discovery, especially for smaller or regional titles, Thakkar added. Platforms counter this by algorithmically inserting promoted or editorial picks. On the backend, personalization data helps decide what genres to invest in, which languages to prioritize, and how to structure the user interface for different user cohorts....