Hotstar Gets Hotter: Jio Turns Up the Heat in India's Streaming Wars

In a rather bold step to conquer India's streaming dynamic, JioHotstar came into existence through the union of JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar. Despite boasting more than 300,000 hours of content and a whopping user base of over 500 million, experts in the industry warn that simply banking on the IPL cricket might not be sufficient. The freshly-created platform will face challenges, particularly in monetizing its huge audience, given that the plans are to limit free IPL streaming and start charging through a tiered subscription model from ₹149 a quarter. To flourish, JioHotstar will have to do much more than just sports: it will require compelling, original series and movies that can go toe-to-toe with the offerings of the global streaming titans. The ability of the platform to traverse this unflinching path will thus depend on the mixture of popular sports content with premium entertainment: it is a balancing act that remains critical for various reasons—retaining subscriptions and justifying premium pricing alike. 

 

Source: Mint