Video distribution startup Nautanki.tv has recently inked deals for three channels - with Zoom TV (BCCL Group), and with Hungama for FTV and Bollywood Hungama (earlier known as IndiaFM). All of these are revenue share deals, and there’s something particularly interesting about the Zoom deal - Zoom is doing their own ad sales for their content on the Nautanki.tv network, and apparently setting up their own team. So far, most content providers have let the online distributor do sales, and taken a cut. Nautanki.tv CEO Sunil Nair feels that broadcasters are better placed to bring their existing advertisers on the network - in which case Nautanki operates as a distributor. At the same time, Nautanki will sell advertising for smaller content providers. Zoom’s revenue share is 70 percent, and the 30 percent that Nautanki gets is shared between them and the publisher (they have a publisher network of over 3200 widgets). Nautanki.tv claims that they’re clocking 5 million video views a day, with 11 lakh unique IPs and 4.5-5 videos per play, as per an independent audit by JuxtConsult. On content consumption, Nair added that any video more than 5 minutes has a dropout rate of 80 percent. Because of the FTV and Bollywood Hungama deals, a rumour has been doing the rounds that Hungama has taken a state in Nautanki.tv. Nair denied this.

Update: We just received an official note from Zoom regarding the details mentioned in this post: “This is with reference to your article on Nautanki.tv’s tie-up with Zoom. This is to bring to your notice that the revenue share mentioned in the article is incorrect as well as information on Zoom hiring a video sales team to sell inventory. Kindly request you to please correct the same.”