The aggressive pricing would place JioCinema in a stronger footing to compete with Netflix and Amazon after an agreement with Disney to merge India TV and streaming assets.
The streaming service, owned by Reliance-affiliate Viacom18 Media Pvt., lowered its price by two-thirds to Rs 29 a month.
Mukesh Ambani’s JioCinema is offering Hollywood movies and TV shows for as little as one rupee a day in a move that could disrupt India’s 1 billion-plus streaming market.
As per the offer, which is a new promotion, the firm will keep live programming, such as cricket matches, free. The streaming service, owned by Reliance-affiliate Viacom18 Media Pvt., lowered its price by two-thirds to Rs 29 a month.
The aggressive pricing would place JioCinema in a stronger footing to compete with Netflix and Amazon after an agreement with Disney to merge India TV and streaming assets, and content deals with the likes of Warner Bros Discovery and NBCUniversal.
The plan includes online and offline viewing, in 4K quality, for foreign movies, TV series and kids programming on any device in five languages, according to Kiran Mani, chief executive officer at Viacom18’s digital division.
Local programming will be free with ads. Netflix and Amazon do not show advertisements in between shows and movies but they are more expensive than the Jio subscription plans.
“We are also offering 89 rupees a month for a family with four simultaneous screen access,” Mani said.
“We want to make it as affordable and as widely available for Indians as possible to make JioCinema a daily viewing habit for the family members,” he added.
Viacom18 Media and Warner Bros Discovery had last year signed a pact to stream the latter’s exclusive content in India, making shows including Succession and The Last of Us as well as other content from HBO and Max Originals available in the country.
“We have the largest library of kids content in here. We have probably one of the best libraries of Hollywood content,” Mani said. “We find increasingly that people watch House of the Dragon, Oppenheimer and the like in their local language.”
JioCinema is also betting big on the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, and is streaming this year’s matches for free. A prized cricket broadcast, which can add millions of subscribers, streamed on a speedy wireless network can be a potent mix for turbocharging Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., India’s No.1 wireless carrier. Brokerage firm Elara Capital’s senior analyst and Vice President Karan Taurani estimates the digital streaming business to be valued at $3–3.5 billion, while its international catalogue will account for $0.5–1 billion and the TV business at $5.5 billion.
“IPL is going to be the catalyst for JioCinema,” said Mani, who formerly ran Google’s Android operations in the Asia Pacific region. “People accessed sports via 120 million screens in India three years ago. This year, India will cross 500 million screens.”
JioCinema has also rolled out a high-decibel & much-appreciated campaign asking consumers, “Toh Aaj Kya Plan Hai?”. The campaign highlights the core benefits of JioCinema Premium while showcasing the distress of today’s consumers when choosing their entertainment plan.
