DGM India, which has so far been an advertising network, is launching a video content network called dgStream: it will tie up with video content owners for supplying content, with publishers to showcase this content to their visitors and hence aggregate audience, and then monetize this inventory through video advertising. Not many people might remember, but this is similar to what was attempted many years ago by Nautanki.tv, wherein Nautanki partnered with premium content owners like ZoomTV, Times Now, FTV, Bollywood Hungama, among others, streamed this video content to small publishers, and tried to monetize that with advertising. Update: Before Nautanki.tv, there was the Times Audience Network doing the same thing. That was 5-6 years ago, and things are slightly different here: the challenge for Nautanki.tv would have been with monetization. They were able to ink content relationships and distribute it to small publishers, but at that time, the online video advertising market in India wasn't very mature. YouTube wasn't big, and the YouTube-IPL deal, which changed the online video advertising landscape in India, was still a year away. Today, people are making money on YouTube, with monetization via video ads. DGM is not only entering a market that is a little more mature, but it also brings with it advertiser relationships that it has established over the years. Getting advertisers will never be as big a challenge for DGM as it would be for an upstart. DGM also already has publisher relationships: they power around 20,000 websites, of which over…
