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Tag: JioCinema

  • Season 4 of Demon Slayer launched

    JioCinema targets youth with Anime Hub

    JioCinema has bolstered its content offerings with an all-new Anime slate for its Premium subscribers. Starting yesterday, May 12, JioCinema will be home to top Anime shows having cult fandom and the launch will be headlined by the global simulcast of Season 4 of Demon Slayer. JioCinema Premium members will have unlimited access to the Anime Hub, a communique adds.

    With an aim of growing the Otaku (anime fan) community in India, the offering will be home to a curated selection of hits and hidden gems, all available in an ultimate ad-free experience with offline viewing options. Animayhem will continue to thrill its fans with new content everyday across the month with hits like ‘Bofuri: I Hate Getting Hurt, So I Put All My Skill Points Into Defense,’ dark comedy  ‘My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!,’ magic driven ‘The Familiar of Zero,’ goblin-hunting action ‘Goblin Slayer,’ and supernatural mystery with ‘In/Spectre’, ensuring there’s something for everyone.

    If you aren’t familiar with the above names, then you are obviously much older and not in sync with the GenZ is watching. And some millennials and Gen Alpha folks as well.

    Speaking on the introduction of a dedicated hub for Anime, a JioCinema spokesperson said: “JioCinema Premium’s consumer-first approach has opened access to high-quality and diverse content for audiences across India. Our latest offering, Anime Hub offers a world of content that will keep anime fans entertained. From simulcast real-time global releases to hundreds of hours of top Anime titles, we are confident that JioCinema’s Anime Hub will grow to become a destination of choice for anime fans in India.”

  • The ongoing Indian Premier League  will continue to be available for Free as part of its Ad-Supported offering

    JioCinema goes premium at Rs 29/month

    JioCinema has announced its new subscription offering, ‘JioCinema Premium’, with a market-disrupting Rs 29 per month subscription offer. A ‘Family’ plan was also announced at Rs 89 per month which offers the additional benefit of four simultaneous screens access. Existing JioCinema Premium members will now enjoy all the additional benefits of the ‘Family’ plan at no extra cost. The ongoing Indian Premier League  will continue to be available for Free as part of its Ad-Supported offering.IPL

    Speaking on the launch of JioCinema Premium, Kiran Mani, CEO, Viacom18 Digital said: “Creating and building an entertainment ecosystem with a product that is made for every Indian household, is not just a business strategy, but a vision to empower our country and users with an unmatched entertainment experience. JioCinema Premium aims to redefine the narrative of premium entertainment for every Indian while building a daily viewing habit.” adding: “The introduction of JioCinema Premium breaks the numerous cost and quality barriers that exist in accessing premium entertainment. With 4K streaming, best-in-class audio, offline viewing and no device restriction all at a customer-centric pricing is sure to democratise access to quality entertainment for all of India.”

  • Featuring a series of videos and reels featuring WPL cricketers

    Santoor by Wipro & Interactive Avenues launch campaign

    Santoor, the flagship brand of Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting, has launched its campaign “Young Soch Diaries,” celebrating the limitless spirit of modern women in association with their digital agency, Interactive Avenues, and JioCinema.

    https://www.jiocinema.com/sports/cricket/young-soch-diaries-ft-harmanpreet/3928339

    Said S Prasanna Rai, Chief Marketing Officer & Head – Ecommerce Business, Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting: “The spirit of today’s women cricketers, their accomplishments, resilience, the way they challenge stereotypes and pursue their dreams without limitations is what resonates with Santoor’s philosophy of, ‘Skin ho ya soch, always stay young’. We hope that the campaign inspires women to embrace their unique identity and explore their limitless potential.”

    Added Aparna Tadikonda, EVP – South, Interactive Avenues: “By spotlighting our women cricketers’ journeys, we wanted to help Santoor position itself as a forward-thinking, inclusive brand that celebrates the fusion of strength and beauty. We’re thrilled with the positive response #YoungSoch is receiving across social media.”

  • Moloco, a player in operational machine learning

    Moloco announces partnership with Viacom18 for ad serving on JioCinema

    Moloco, a player in operational machine learning (ML) and advertising technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Viacom18 and JioCinema.

    Said Sunil Rayan, Moloco’s Chief Business Officer: “As the streaming media industry continues to focus on monetization, we’re excited to partner with leading players such as JioCinema to develop their performance advertising engine. We have leveraged Moloco’s deep experience in advertising technology over the last decade to build an ad serving solution for JioCinema that ensures stability at scale and improves user experience during peak times. Looking ahead to Tata IPL 2024, we anticipate an even bigger opportunity to engage millions of viewers while also creating measurable value for advertisers,” he added.

    Added Akash Saxena, CPTO, JioCinema: “By using Moloco’s advanced algorithms and highly optimized ad serving infrastructure, we were able to deliver ads to 32M viewers concurrently during Tata IPL 2023 and offer new monetization opportunities to our advertisers.”

    Speaking on the announcement, Siddharth Jhawar, Moloco’s General Manager for India, said, “India’s 700 million digital population has shown a growing preference for consuming video content online. As streaming platforms scale and look for more monetisation opportunities, Moloco Streaming Monetization can help them grow profitably.”

  • Shailesh Kapoor presents his five most significant landmarks of the year that has just passed us

    From SRK to Animal: Success Stories of 2023

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorThe year 2023 had its fair share of success stories, across cinema and OTT at least. Here’s my pick of the five most significant landmarks of the year (in chronological order), which could, in turn, shape how Indian entertainment pans out in the next half decade at least.

     

    The return of SRK, and the old guard in general

    January saw Shah Rukh Khan mark a box-office comeback with Pathaan. It had been a decade since he had a bona fide hit (Chennai Express). But with Pathaan, he announced his return, in an innings that’s already seeming a lot of fun. Pathaan was followed in September by Jawan, which went on to become an even bigger success. SRK’s December release Dunki has received mixed response, and significantly lower collections. But with SRK, and with Sunny Deol in Gadar 2, it seems like we are back in the ’90s. Superstars from that era are showing the young guys how it’s done!

     

    Farzi: The Real Thing

    In what was not the best year for OTT (curtailed subscriber growth, very few breakout properties), one show stood out as an outright blockbuster: Raj-DK’s Farzi, on Prime Video, starring Shahid Kapoor and Vijay Sethupathi, became the most-watched Indian SVOD show of all time, with an estimated 37 Million (Ormax Media estimates) Indians having watched at least one episode. Coming after the immensely successful and appreciated The Family Man, Farzi established Raj-DK as one of the most powerful names in the Indian streaming space. Their next venture Guns & Gulaabs (Netflix) fell short of achieving the same heights. But Farzi’s success confirmed that mass entertainers, rather than urban-centric understated content, is likely to be the way ahead for web-series in India.

     

    JioCinema: A ‘free’ ride

    The arrival of JioCinema, with an IPL edition that was free to stream, brought in a sea change in the Indian OTT landscape in March 2023. The platform made some of the global giants relook at their India strategy. Disney+ Hotstar offered the Cricket World Cup free later in the year. JioCinema backed the IPL season with a plethora of launches, most notably Asur 2 and Taali. But over the last four-five months, they have gone easy on things, and relied more on non-fiction properties, especially Bigg Boss. Perhaps IPL 2024 is when we will see more activity around the platform.

     

    Barbenheimer

    Who would have thought that a Hollywood film clash will make headlines in India? The Barbie vs. Oppenheimer weekend in August 2023 brought in about Rs. 100 Cr (gross) worth of box office in India, which was also one of the few countries where Oppenheimer was ahead of Barbie at the box office. Hollywood has not had its best year in India, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Hollywood’s mainstay in the Indian market, being on some sort of a downtrend. But with Oppenheimer, we saw audiences flocking theatres in the service of a director urban India has come to love: Christopher Nolan.

     

    Animal instincts

    December 2023 saw the release of director Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal, a film that polarised critics, but was largely embraced by the audiences, going on to become one of the most significant success stories of the year, especially because it’s headlined by a younger star (not from the ‘old guard’). After Atlee’s Jawan, Vanga’s Animal established the firm hold directors from South India are beginning to have on Hindi audience’s imagination, through their distinctive style of storytelling. Everything about Animal, right from its trailer to the choreography and background music of its action set-pieces, broke conventional rules of mass Indian cinema. And it was very heartening that another film (12th Fail) that came just a month before Animal, and broke a few rules of cinema too, also got immense audience love, especially for its scale, cast and budget. That Animal and 12th Fail can co-exist augurs well for Hindi cinema, which had its best-ever year by some margin.

     

  • Inspired by real-life stories of the matrimonial platform

    JioCinema & Jeevansathi join hands for ‘Saath By Chance’

    By Our Staff

     

    Entertainment platform JioCinema has partnered with matchmaker Jeevansathi.com  to launch ‘Saath By Chance’. Tthe three-episode series weaves the “magic of love with inspiration drawn from real-life success stories of Jeevansathi couples”.

     

    Speaking on the association, Himani Bahuguna, EVP & Head of Marketing at Jeevansathi.com, said, “Jeevansathi.com has always stood for creating meaningful connections, and ‘Saath By Chance’ is a testament to the incredible stories that have unfolded on our platform over the past 25 years. Each episode will bring to life the genuine, heartwarming narratives of couples who discovered love through Jeevansathi.com’s superior matching algorithms.”

     

    Speaking on the association, a JioCinema spokesperson said: “At JioCinema, our commitment is to curate content that is not just entertaining but also innovative and compelling. ‘Saath By Chance’ is a testament to this dedication, as it unfolds a narrative that celebrates the magic of love in a truly unique way. In partnering with Jeevansathi.com, we aim to create a seamless blend of entertainment and connection, resonating with our audiences on a deeper level. Our collaboration further represents our ongoing pursuit to bring stories that directly touch the hearts of our viewers. We look forward to fostering more such partnerships and continuing to provide our audience with captivating content that transcends boundaries and brings people together in the spirit of love and storytelling.”

     

  • To bring SFA Championships 2023-2024 on digital and TV

    Viacom18 & Sports For All (SFA) collaborate

    By Our Staff

     

    With the presentation of SFA Championships on JioCinema, Sports18-2, and Sports18 Khel channels, school sporting competitions will now make their way to digital and television. The partnership of Sports For All (SFA), tech-enabled multi-sport grassroots competition platform and Viacom18, will together make school sports accessible to millions of sports fans, across the country.

     

    Said Head of Content, TV and Digital, Viacom 18 Sports, Siddharth Sharma: “The partnership with Sports For All (SFA) is our bid to make sporting action from the grassroots level accessible by harnessing the power of digital. We endeavour to continue spotlighting school-level talent by including SFA Championships in our portfolio.”

     

    Added SFA founders Vishwas Choksi and Rishikesh Joshi: “Partnering with Viacom18 is indeed a historic moment, in bringing Indian school sports to the centre stage.  The country will now join in to witness the incredible potential of our young athletes”, “Our aim is to enthuse viewers to witness the journey of future champions, through our broadcast content. The SFA Championships entail an international sporting experience through equitable access to world class infrastructure, match videos, analytics and insights for school athletes. Every episode will showcase the energy and sporting talent of that city, their trials and tribulations and how every athlete contributes in identifying the ‘number one school in sports’, for their city.”

     

  • Announces dedicated kids and family hub

    JioCinema goes on overdrive with kids

    By Our Staff

     

    On Children’s Day, JioCinema announced its foray into children’s entertainment with a focused ‘Kids and Family’ offering. With over 3000 hours of well-known global and Indian Ips in five-plus Indian languages. This takes the separate offering for children under Voot Kids to the next level. A communique issued quotes an unnamed spokesperson saying: “At JioCinema, we are deeply committed to building a one-stop destination for all things entertainment. We are invested in understanding Indian audiences and their preferences and continue to evolve as the preferred source for all their entertainment needs.”

     

    On offer will be old Viacom18 Ips like Motu Patlu, Shiva, Rudra, Chikoo aur Bunty, Pinaki and the Bhoot Bandhus, The Twisted Timelines of Sammy & Raj, Kanha – Morpankh Samrat, among others. And then there will be Harry Potter, Transformers, HBO Storybook musical, The Looney Tunes Show, Super Mario Bros, Justice League War World, Garfield, Tin Tin, Trollstopia, Zig & Shark, Peppa Pig, Pokémon, and movies like Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, Teen Titans Go, Polar Express, Lego Ninjago, The Flintstones, Boss Baby, etc. Some of this has been inked thanks to partnerships with leading studios including Cartoon Network Studios, Dreamworks, EOne, The Pokémon Company & Animaccord, among others, the offering will add fresh content every week.

     

    Headlining the rollout of the kids and family slate is the Pokemania festival which starts today (November 16).

     

    We spoke with an industry observer to get a perspective on the launch, and this is what she said: “What Jio Cinema has been able to crack is the code on what works for children, something that not many grown-up content heads find it difficult to do. Getting top content from across platform is creditable. The kids category is by far the toughest to please given that what appeals to an seven-year-old will be childish for someone who is 11. Jio Cinema has segmented this further with an age-appropriate approach and a promise of new show or movie every week for kids, something that no OTT or linear television offering is doing.”

     

  • Promises to elevate the standards of startup investment

    Indian Angels to debut on JioCinema today

    By Our Staff

     

    Indian Angels, the angel investment show on OTT, is scheduled to go live today JioCinema. The show will air two episodes every week offering an opportunity for the audience to engage with the featured startups.

     

    Said Abhishek More, Founder and CEO of Digikore Studios: “We’re thrilled for the debut of ‘Indian Angels’ tomorrow with the release of two initial episodes. The response has been overwhelmingly positive since we unveiled the show a few days ago. We’ve meticulously tailored this show with the Indian audience in mind, recognizing their deep interest in startup growth. Consequently, we’ve ensured that the show is not only entertaining but also accessible, allowing viewers to actively participate in the growth of their favorite startups. We believe this will offer an unparalleled experience for all, and we eagerly await the audience’s response.”

     

  • Given the sameness to shows over the last five years, the new 'Daily unscripted content' format merits attention, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Reality Check

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorThe linear television business in India has been struggling to find its next big idea. The streaming originals marketplace in India is operating more cautiously too, with economic and industry considerations, both global and local, slowing it down. Amid this relatively low-action period, a new format is making its presence felt: Daily unscripted content.

     

    While Bigg Boss and Kaun Banega Crorepati have been around for years as dailies, non-fiction has largely been seen as a weekend content type. GECs rightly expect daily soaps to build loyal weekday audiences. In any case, most non-fiction shows in India are in the broad genre of talent competitions, and they tend to be upto five to 10 times more expensive that fiction shows, making them unviable as a staple proposition.

     

    But the advent of streaming may have changed things a bit. Sony LIV recently launched MasterChef India only for OTT. The show has been around on GECs for years, across two networks, but has never quite found the success it would have hoped to. No surprise, then, that Sony has given up on its ambitions for the show related to mass television.

     

    Shark Tank India is a more recent, and a more obvious, example of a streaming-friendly show failing to deliver on linear TV, despite the network backing it with up aggressive marketing. The third season will follow the MasterChef India template, with daily episode drops on Sony LIV.

     

    JioCinema (earlier Voot) has done two seasons of Bigg Boss OTT. MX Player did its own homegrown variant, produced by Balaji Telefilms, titled Lock Upp, in 2022. Tonight, the first-ever season of Temptation Island India, starts on JioCinema. All these shows are in the daily format.

     

    The weekday-weekend distinction related to fiction and non-fiction seems to have blurred in recent times. It could be a result of many factors: Less compelling fiction content on TV, change in audience habits in the OTT era (such as low appointment viewership), episodic content being more preferred to continuity-driven stories, etc.

     

    While the reasons are a subject of further analysis, daily non-fiction is finding its takers, both at the platform side and the audience side. The new season of Bigg Boss has opened very well from TV standards. The show has original content in the form of interstitials and spin-offs on OTT, which are carefully designed for better monetisation. In what’s increasingly an AVOD-SVOD hybrid environment for original content (compared to 2020-22), monetisation via advertisers has made non-fiction a more relevant option on streaming.

     

    The Indian non-fiction market needed this boost in its thinking. There has been a sense of sameness to the shows over the last five years, with the same formats being rehashed. But formats that were safe bets till before the pandemic have struggled to deliver numbers in recent times, and viewer fatigue is evidently one of the primary reasons.

     

    Daily non-fiction may help GECs and OTT platforms, especially those with a strong AVOD service, find a new business model. It may be just the right time too, given that the web-series (fiction) content on SVOD is beginning to look just a tad jaded. The audience will surely not be complaining if they get a legitimately-different option on the menu.

     

  • It may seem like an extreme position to take, but the days of pay content in India, that’s targeting a wider demographic, may be numbered, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Free-to-stream: Will subscription models survive?

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorThe much-anticipated India-Pakistan clash in the Asia Cup, scheduled tomorrow (Sep 2), marks the start of a busy cricketing scene. The action is equally hectic off the field too. The start of the Asia Cup also coincided with the news that Viacom 18 has bagged the rights for BCCI-organized bilateral series in India over the next five years.

     

    Viacom 18/ JioCinema’s entry into sports has disrupted the landscape in 2023. From being a driver of paid subscriptions, cricket is now playing the role of reach aggregator on OTT. The Asia Cup is available for free streaming on Disney+ Hotstar, and the ODI World Cup that follows will go the same way. Indeed, the era of paid sports content in India maybe over. It’s only a matter of time that sports channels on TV go free-to-air as well.

     

    With the no. 1 sport in the country (and by some margin) being available for free, the state of several other sports, including football, tennis, wrestling, etc. hangs in balance. Will they continue to be “premium” offerings that get smaller audiences who are willing to pay for them? Or will the networks hope to expand the reach of these sports by making them available free? The question, of course, extends to television too.

     

    Are we going back in time, by shunning subscription models in favor of those dependent on advertising? Far from it. For the last several years, almost all major players, in the streaming space in particular, but also in linear television, have over-rated an average Indian’s inclination to pay for content. They have priced their products at levels that are untenable, and then gone on to offer handsome discounts, to the extent of 50-75% at times.

     

    But the core question is not about the price alone. It is: “Why pay at all?” Changing a market’s mindset from free to pay is an arduous task. We have seen how niche channels lost out once the NTO effects kicked in a few years ago. Outside the top 10 cities in India, paying for data, however low the rates maybe, itself is a choice to make. Stand-alone subscriptions are not even serious considerations. Reluctantly but inevitably, platforms have consented to being a part of aggregator bundles, where the ARPUs are much lower. A Jio-Netflix deal was announced just last week.

     

    It may seem like an extreme position to take, but the days of pay content in India, especially when it comes to mainstream content that’s targeting a wider demographic, may be numbered. The major GECs going free-to-air in the next 2-3 years is not ruled out either. It would just take one of the top 4 to make the move and grab the top spot, and things may look very different overnight.

     

    All hail the advertising economy!

     

  • Shailesh Kapoor presents his pick of the five media and entertainment events that headlined the first half of 2023

    6 Months, 5 Headlines: The Year So Far

     

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorWe are halfway through the year today, which is good excuse for a mid-year review. Here’s my pick of the five media and entertainment events that headlined the first half of the year, in chronological order of sorts:

     

    Pathaan: An SRK reboot

    Six months into the year, there’s been only one genuine blockbuster in Hindi cinema in 2023: Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan. The actor made a mini comeback of sorts (his last major hit dates back to 2013 – Chennai Express). Pathaan went on to become the highest grossing Hindi film of all time, both in terms of its opening and its lifetime business. In the process, it also put to rest the presumptuous argument that movie-going will be replaced by OTT. (I wrote about Pathaan and SRK’s superstardom in January in this column).

     

    India Shining, at the Oscars

    India’s brush with the Oscars has been, at best, a case of so-near-yet-so-far. There hasn’t been much to shout about in recent years, except AR Rahman, Gulzar and Resul Pookutty winning Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire (2008). This year, we had not one but two winners, in Naatu Naatu (RRR) and The Elephant Whisperers, and a creditable nomination for All That Breathes. The RRR song even got a stage performance at the Oscars, and there seemed more Indian presence at the Oscars in 2023, than across all previous years put together!

     

    IPL: Bigger by the year

    A long but immensely successful season of IPL dominated viewership, both on linear television and online, in the first half of 2023. The IPL’s ability to grow stronger each year is an incredible one. The league has been one of my go-to topics in this column, and I wrote about it twice this year, at the start and the end of the season.

     

    JioCinema: Free for all

    The IPL was the also the scene of a disruption that not many saw coming, till a few weeks before it: JioCinema, the newly relaunched service from Viacom 18, decided to remove the paywall behind which the league has streamed all these years on Disney+ Hotstar. The platform has followed it up with an aggressive AVOD-led strategy, putting out big theatrical films and a major web-series (Asur 2) as free content. This has set the proverbial cat among the pigeons in the OTT industry in India. There’s unlikely to be a dull moment around, anytime soon.

     

    Cinema of the Right, by the right, for the Right

    While The Kashmir Files stood out as an aberration in 2022, this year saw two major films appropriate the Hindutva narrative. The Kerala Story seemed like a direct inspiration from the success of The Kashmir Files, and did equally well too, and is the second-highest grossing film in India this year so far (across languages), behind Pathaan. Adipurush went the mythology way, riding on the unconditional reverence for the Ramayan in large parts of India. The film opened at staggering levels, but soon went on to become a victim of the very idea it was trying to ride on. Irony, you had me at the vacant Hanuman seat.

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is Founder and CEO, Ormax Media. And is a long-standing columnist of MxMIndia and writes on Fridays. His views here are personal.