Free IPL Streaming A Hit, JioCinema Sees 5 Cr New App Downloads

The decision of Mukesh Ambani-led Viacom18’s JioCinema to stream the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) for free seems to be paying dividends as the OTT platform on Monday (April 3) claimed that it saw 5 Cr new app downloads during the opening weekend of the T20 tournament.

In a release, JioCinema said it clocked over 147 Cr video views during the first weekend and attracted 10 Cr new viewers.

The average time spent per viewer per match also rose 60% to 57 minutes compared to last season’s first weekend, it claimed.

The season-opening match between MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings and Hardik Pandya’s Gujarat Titans achieved a peak concurrency of 1.6 Cr, the statement said, adding that JioCinema registered over 2.5 Cr downloads in a single day.

“Digital is targetable, addressable and interactive. Unlike legacy services, measurement on digital is based on the exact number of people who come in to watch and not based on subjective extrapolation from a small sample set. The landscape for content consumption has irrevocably moved to digital and JioCinema performance this week is the biggest evidence of it,” Viacom18 Sports CEO Anil Jayaraj said.

Viacom18 acquired the digital streaming rights for the marquee cricket tournament for a whopping INR 23,758 Cr for the 2023-2027 period. Its rival Disney Star, which had the digital rights for IPL before, used to stream the cricket tournament behind paywall.

JioCinema’s move to stream the IPL for free is aimed at shoring up its user base and is in line with the Jio brand’s history of providing services at rates much lower than the prevailing prices or for free.

As per a report by brokerage firm Elara Capital, free IPL streaming would give a big boost to JioCinema’s subscriber base and may help it compete with the likes of YouTube India and Facebook in the digital video advertising market.

JioCinema is also offering IPL commentary, score, and statistics to viewers in 12 languages, including Hindi, English, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, and more.

JioCinema’s onslaught comes at a time when other OTT platforms in the Indian market seem to be struggling. For example, Disney+ Hotstar lost 3.8 Mn subscribers in the October-December quarter of 2022 in its biggest-ever quarterly loss after losing IPL, F1 rights. To add to its woes, the platform has also stopped streaming HBO content.

On the other hand, Netflix is also reportedly planning to change its content strategy to focus more on tent-pole films due to subdued performance of its Indian originals.

As per a report by Media Partners Asia, JioCinema is expected to grab 60% of the total IPL 2023 advertising revenue. While digital advertising revenue will surpass TV advertising revenue for the first time, JioCinema’s advertising GMV could touch $330 Mn-$350 Mn.

More than 20 top brands have partnered with JioCinema for the IPL, including Dream11, PhonePe, Amazon, Rapido, among others.