JioHotstar’s promise to entertain one billion screens

The ₹70,532-crore Reliance-Disney-Star merger announced in November last year is by far the biggest M&A deal that the ₹2.3 lakh-crore Indian media and entertainment industry has ever witnessed. The merged entity owns over 60% of the Indian media landscape. Though JioStar does enjoy a monopoly, industry gurus believe that its dominance would be dependent on the quality of content that it offers to consumers. While the likes of ZEE, Sony, or Netflix are nowhere in terms of scale, hard-hitting content could well put them at an advantage. After all, content is going to be king, no matter the size of the entities. 

Consumers would have already noticed a bombardment of content marketing on their social media accounts by various stakeholders (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Sony, etc.). The newly launched JioHotstar (a fusion of JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar), promises to democratise high-quality content across consumer strata with the use of technology. “For the first time, we have an app which has access to a billion screens,” says Kiran Mani, CEO (digital), JioStar. The app, according to him, will not just cater to premium pay consumers, but also those who would watch their content on a ₹2,500 Jio feature phone.    

Content for all

How unique would the content on JioHotstar be? While multi-language content, content for women and children are a given, the JioHotstar content, says Kevin Vaz, CEO (entertainment), would have something to offer to every individual in a family. “You can’t be talking to just one individual in the house or just the top 10 million. You need to talk to the entire family, across Hindi-speaking markets and regional markets and with inclusive content,” explains Vaz. The coming months, he says, will see the launch of at least 40-50 originals shows in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, and other regional languages.

While soap operas such as Anupama and Mangal Lakshmi are hugely successful and have been entertaining the masses for years, the plan is also to launch shorter 60-80 episode shows in genres that would appeal to younger audiences. “We will focus on genres underserved by television today (procedurals, co-programmers, comedy, etc.). They would be family-inclusive content, watchable on big screens, in the comfort of living rooms,” explains Vaz.

The plan is to seamlessly integrate television with digital. Its well-known that a large chunk of the erstwhile Disney+ Hotstar viewership came from the TV content that was played on the platform and sports, especially cricket. JioHotstar, therefore, plans to create a lot more content around its popular television properties such as Anupama, Bigg Boss or Roadies, that would be exclusive to digital. “Fans of Anupama will get to see bite-sized content, they will get to see big moments which they might not get to see otherwise on television. Technology changing from a particular wire behind the TV should not change what content you are comfortable watching,” points out Mani. “We are shortly launching a new show but before the show goes on air we will launch 28 micro episodes, which is the backstory of the show. That’s how we’ll have interactivity with our consumers,” adds Vaz.

While bite-size content of its popular shows seems like a logical extension, JioHotstar is also planning a series of two-minute bite-sized content that of late has become extremely popular. “One thing that has happened in India is that people have had to go to three different places for all of this. They had to go to television to get their habitual content, to unorganised UGC (user-generated) content to satisfy niche hubs and to OTTs for hero content. Our hope is that we can cater to all three,” says Mani.

Vaz believes that JioHotstar would be the ultimate destination for premium English content consumers. “There will be no app in the world that could have the kind of premium content that we will have on JioHotstar. This is the only app that will have Marvel, Disney, Lucas, Warner, HBO, Peacock—all on one platform. That’s going to be a delight for any English-speaking premium user. Besides that, this content will be dubbed in multiple languages, making it more accessible. The biggest consumption we have had for movies like Avengers is in vernacular languages.”

Integrating technology with content

The main purpose of JioHotstar, according to Mani, is not just to offer a breadth of content but to offer it in contexts and formats that a consumer can consume with ease. He is especially proud of the way they recently live-streamed Coldplay’s Ahmedabad concert. “The Coldplay live stream was a watershed moment. Technologically, it was just a live stream, but live-streaming a sports event, which is highly visual versus a musical event, which is audio-heavy, is an entirely different challenge. But it wasn’t just about the technology or bringing the event live. What made that event more accessible for the Indian consumer was how it became a frenzy. I wasn’t a Coldplay fan, I hadn’t grown up listening to their music, but I watched that show and liked it we did something very interesting—on the app, we had actually loaded the lyrics of every song. That changed the experience. It became a sing-along. In fact, at the stadium, people were watching the live stream just to follow the lyrics and sing along. Technology allows us to amplify and make content more relevant.”

It’s also all about habit-building, Mani adds. “We don’t just drop hero content, we first build habits, then create hubs, and then introduce hero content. Years of content experience have shown us that habit-building matters because that’s what leads to resonance. Technology has added new layers to this. Earlier, we used to segment India based on language, gender and standard audience cuts. But affordability plays a crucial role in how and when content is watched. For example, someone using an iPhone with a ₹599 data connection expects a high-quality experience—if they get cricket at 480p, they will feel it’s a bad experience. On the other hand, if someone with a ₹15,000 smartphone and a ₹199 data plan gets 1080p quality, they’ll be frustrated because their data will be exhausted in an hour. So, context matters. Switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data instantly impacts access, and access is the first step to content growth.”

Television once upon a time was all about appointment viewing. Remember the days when the Indian homemaker made sure she finished all her chores by 10 pm so that she could watch Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi or Pavitra Rishta? Vaz says that his job is no longer to dictate when people should watch a show. “Our table stakes on the platform include offering the full-length content first. All our TV shows are available on OTT 12 hours before they are aired on TV. That’s the foundation on which everything else is built. So, we are flipping the model by ensuring that as long as content is available, our job is not to dictate how people watch it, where they watch it or in what context. We make it available in every possible format —vertical or horizontal, 2 minutes to 200 minutes, episodic or continuous.”

Advantage content creators

Not so long ago, most OTT platforms preferred working with big production companies such as Yash Raj, Excel, or Applause. The reason was simple—OTT was new to the country and creating content was expensive too. Therefore, the safest bet was to partner with established content creators. But most shows created by the biggies didn’t do well. The new-age digital content creators had a far better understanding of the platform.         

“If you ask me about the content creation system, I think what’s going to be our biggest endeavour is how do we reach out to people beyond the four or five cities. Because some of the great writing talent is coming from small cities, right? If we want to get rooted stories, it’s very important for us to now reach out to a much bigger, wider, writing talent or creative talent. It’s not about trying to reach out to these big production houses or people. It’s more about seeing that how do you go deeper and find the new creative talent. Some of our best shows have come from people who are rooted in those markets,” says Vaz.

 Will JioHotstar’s ambition to democratise content across one billion screens make the likes of ZEE, Sony, or Netflix mere fringe players? It’s the content that will make the difference.