How Is JioCinema Capitalising On IPL’s High Viewership?

Reliance Industries-owned streaming platform JioCinema is streaming the Tata IPL for free on the OTT platform. Viacom18, a part of the Reliance Group, bought IPL’s streaming rights for $2.7 billion for 2023-27. 

While initially it was expected that the IPL would be streamed on Viacom’s OTT Voot, it was later announced that IPL would be streamed on the JioCinema platform, free of cost.

According to JioCinema, the opening weekend of IPL clocked 147 crore video views. In addition, each viewer spent 57 minutes per match on the platform, a 60 per cent jump from the previous year’s first weekend. 

JioCinema also had five crore new app downloads and ten crore new viewers. The entire first week saw 550 crore views cumulatively. More recently, the match viewership hit 2.2 crores during the match between Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals. 

There could be several reasons for the increased engagement on the platform. The company’s optimism for The digital format has several advantages over the TV format for both users and advertisers. 

The digital format allows users to watch the IPL from anywhere, with options to select vernacular commentary, making it more accessible to a wider audience. At the same time, advertisers can target specific audiences and work with small budgets – unlike TV advertising, which requires large budgets. The platform was also the top advertiser on TV during the week before the IPL.

How is Reliance Planning to Monetise JioCinema?

Newsagency PTI quoted a company official as saying that the initial plan was to reach the breakeven mark in three years. But, the high viewership might help the company break even earlier. 

While the company is optimistic about recouping its investment, Media Partners Asia had estimated that the total advertising spend on the IPL would be $ 550 million across pay-TV and digital, against the annual fees of $ 1.2 billion paid by rights holders. 

Jio is expected to corner around 60 per cent. Currently, advertising and marketing budgets have also been slashed by companies to tide over the current consumption slowdown. Perhaps the breakeven will be reached by the platform through its other content offerings. 

The company plans to release 100 new films and series created by Jio Studios exclusively on its platform and is expected to offer paid plans by the end of IPL. 

Reliance’s media and content business President Jyoti Deshpande told Bloomberg that the platform would begin charging for content. Since it has gained a large base of users through the free streaming of the IPL, it only needs to convert these users into paying users. 

Jio has already been building an extensive content library with regional and pan-Indian content through external and original content. Some of the content that Vicom18 creates is also being streamed on the JioCinema platform. Perhaps the Reliance Group want JioCinema to be the primary OTT platform instead of Voot.

 Reliance is also strengthening its media business by getting investments from industry veterans Uday Shankar and Paramount Global into Viacom18 (the owner of JioCinema), totalling Rs 15,000. The money will likely be used to create new content and grow the media business’ viewership.

JioCinema’s Competitors Are Struggling

JioCinema’s competitors, like Netflix and Disney, have been struggling to grow their footprint in India, and have resorted to offering lower prices plans or free content with advertising. 

Disney Hotstar is also struggling as its Bollywood plus Cricket strategy was thwarted by Jio winning the rights to the IPL. In addition, Disney ended its content deal with HBO, making its content offerings significantly less attractive to users. 

Netflix, too has been struggling with growth concerns and has introduced new measures to prevent revenue leakages. 

The current slowdown has also caused OTT platforms to lower their budgets for original content or content acquisition. 

If Reliance could use its deep pockets to create content or scoop up attractive media properties, it could possibly beat the other OTT platforms. 

With its Rs 15,000 crore war chest and industry veteran leaders, Viacom18 could be a formidable foe for incumbent media players.