JioStar focussing on engagement, not the number of original shows: Kevin Vaz
ADVERTISEMENT
JioHotstar has a paid subscriber base of around 300 million. Around 810 million consumers consume JioStar’s streaming and linear platforms every week. The perception, however, is that JioStar is overdependent on sports, especially the IPL and doesn't invest enough on original content. That’s just a perception, argues Kevin Vaz, CEO (entertainment), JioStar. “In the quarter of April-May-June, you have the biggest tournament which is the IPL. We typically have 450 monthly active users. However, in the July-September quarter, I still engage with 450-500 million monthly active users. We have seen continuous growth. Every tournament has got more and more people to come and sample us.”
While JioStar does offer the entire repertoire of its close to 100 linear channels on JioHotstar as well as content of global studios such as Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Peacock and HBO among others on its platform, it is not up there in terms of producing original content, believe industry veterans. Vaz disagrees. “Nobody makes as many shows as we do,” he says.
“We make it in more languages. We might not make as many shows in Hindi, we might not participate in movies as much. That's because we made a choice. We are very clear, when we enter a space, we would like to own that space. And that becomes a moat. We didn’t enter English entertainment just because of Walt Disney. We entered English saying that we want every Hollywood studio on our platform. Whether it is HBO, Warner, Peacock, Disney, everything is on our platform.”
Vaz claims that some of JioHotstar’s most watched shows are in vernacular languages such as Malayalam. “Some of our most watched shows and movies are in Malayalam. They get bigger audiences than some of the Hindi shows on other platforms. We are language agnostic; we look at content which has universal appeal. We are not targeting just a particular market, because at the end of the day, you are watching content for the storytelling. It doesn’t matter if you are watching it in Hindi, Spanish or Malayalam.”
Ever since Reliance and Disney-Star have merged, Vaz says the merged platform has moved away from chasing TVRs (television viewer ratings) or evaluating success on the basis of the number of original shows. “We no longer compare ourselves with another media company or a streaming platform. We like to call ourselves a tech platform which can reach out to more and more people through our content. Our success is going to be driven by how many people we engage across screens.”
He cites the example of reality show, Bigg Boss. “Earlier, we were making content only for TV, as that was our only audience. Today, we are saying that we are making content that can be consumed on linear, connected TV and on mobile handsets. So, Bigg Boss also has a 24-hour service, exclusively for people who are on the move. They can watch at any point of time what is happening in the Bigg Boss house through the live camera installed in the house. There is gaming too. People can vote and win prizes,” he explains.
“Everything that is created today, is created saying how it will work for a consumer across screens and how we can engage with them even more,” he adds. He also cites the example of MTV Splitsvilla which was always considered a niche, since it was consumed largely by youth on a linear TV channel. “Shows like Roadies and Splitsvilla get something like 200 million watch time. The big difference is that shows which were considered niche are no longer niche because they are being consumed on mobile handsets as well as on connected TVs. The universe has become wider.”
The mantra at JioStar is to offer a seamless experience to its consumers across devices. “That’s the rationale for Tadka (micro-drama platform) too. We have integrated vertical (Tadka) and horizontal (JioHotstar) storytelling on the same platform. We have made the consumer experience seamless. It’s just a switch of button.”