Jio Cinema’s to become an Indian media Conglomerate ! How Far?
Starting with famous quote “if you’re not paying for the product then you are the product”, Viacom has bagged the digital rights for IPL for whooping amount of Rs 23,758 crore from 2023-27.Before Viacom has acquired FIFA World Cup streaming right for $55million. Jio Cinema becomes again a talkative subject In India. I hope you have seen many articles regarding the news of Jio Cinema. People are wondered & started to ask and think why?
Jio Cinema
Viacom18, a division of TV18 owns Jio Cinema, an over- the-top streaming and on-demand service for Indian advertising video content. Jio Cinema launched on 5th Sept 2016, along with Jio Telecommunication. Jio Cinema follows a freemium model; this approach has been a genius move as it has helped Jio Cinema attract a massive user base by offering free access to premium content, thereby creating a strong customer base and driving user engagement. Jio Cinema, a streaming platform by Reliance Jio, has emerged as a game-changer with its genius business model that is disrupting the traditional streaming landscape. What sets Jio Cinema apart is its unique business model that combines a freemium approach with strategic partnerships, content acquisition, and user engagement. Jio Cinema has also focused on user engagement to drive its success. The platform offers a seamless and intuitive user experience, with features such as personalized recommendations, content curation, and offline downloading, which have contributed to increased user engagement.
What is Jio Cinema Strategy?
- Repeating the same strategy that has worked in Jio Sim. It was the same strategy followed by the Hotstar itself during their initial time. Streaming IPL for 2-3 years for free and start charging a small subscription fee. They can twist this strategy by charging on non-jio users.
- Jio is benefitting immensely by cross selling products. It’s a nature that consumer is being switch to different Ott Platform have more widen content. By successful FIFA World Cup 2022 streaming, this platform switch to new customer base with IPL 2023.
- According to the report the Jio Cinema will bag 60% of total ad sales of IPL 2023. Paying a whooping amount of 23000 crore can grab the entire amount by 2027 in the name of ad sales and the brilliant engaging content to offer.
The Game Changer
Estimated 20-25 million subscriber of Disney+ Hotstar are expected to be a new user in Jio Cinema to watch IPL. IPL streaming rights bagged by Jio Cinema with tremendous amount of 23000 crore open new demand for Advertising-based-video-on-demand (AVOD). Subscription-video -on-demand (SVOD) streaming market cripple due to price sensitive behavior of Indian Users. Negative impact on SVOD because the customer has to extract 3000-4000rs from their pocket on annual basis for content driven platform.
According to the report from Ericsson, India expected to have 500 million 5G subscriber by 2027. 5G has launched in India and the people having huge mentality to change from their current network from 4G to 5G.
5G is expected to contribute around 2% to India’s GDP with a whooping amount of $180 billion by 2030. By the introduction of 5G and content driven market the pay-TV market facing challenges because of the popularity of free broadcast, omnipresence and availability of SVOD in market.
Jio-Cinema’s Vision
Mostly Youngsters are in smartphones and they are getting more opportunities and content within the smartphone and easily accessible. By this, streaming platform can get into any form and people are going to watch from anywhere. Additionally, globally all the industries are facing recession, so the ad budget are pressurized to slow down. Jio-Cinema is approaching this industry on a macroeconomics level, after the continuous fall of budget it is expected reach its peak by 2030.
Jio-Cinemas are seeing broad based demand, but the advertisers are perplexed and have become chaotic with unclear target and reach. Mostly from the start of the year companies do not spend huge amount on marketing or Ad this is because of financial year ending and so on. Add on but in this year the industries are facing recession and inflation around the globe.
Reliance backed Jio are already a winner in each sector they step on. Jio-Fiber are reaching nuke and corner of the country and giving best platform experience to the user. Promoting their ad-sales not only through Jio- Cinema but also through fiber as well. India is a huge market with more than 70% having smartphone is expected to increase 85% by the end of 2027.
How competitor’s getting crushed?
Disney+ Hotstar is experiencing a decline in popularity after losing the streaming right of IPL. Discontinuation of HBO content is also another factor. Hotstar getting ad-sales through cricket streaming, such as Asia Cup and ICC World Cup are going to happen on the second half of this year, but the service is still facing a potential loss of 15million paying subscriber by the end of 2023. If Hotstar fails to make change on their content other dominant player in this industry may take over the India’s premium VOD market.
The Future
Reliance- backed Jio Cinema is going to reapply their successful strategy once again. Within 2 months of time span they got 100 million users. Jio-Cinema is not to be free anymore after IPL Jio-Cinema is planning to compete with other major OTT platform such Netflix, Amazon Prime etc by adding 100’s of movies and web series. They are planning to merge with Voot which is already an established platform backed by Viacom. Jio- Cinema aims to fill the gap between western and Indian Content. Researching the price sensitive behavior of Indian viewers they are introducing low fare comparing with other OTT platform. In Future they are going step on to virtual gaming as well.
Keeping simple tariff offers cost effective plans to the users might not flare their pocket. Jio is entering into mass media industry will give lot of content towards the users and it is poised to become a major competitor for many OTT platform and Indian streaming Industry.
