JioCinema Unveils Subscription Plan For Premium Content To Take On Netflix, Other OTT Rivals

Blame it on the high-octane IPL series or the competition, in a strategic move, Reliance’s OTT platform JioCinema has rolled out paid subscriptions plans for premium content.

The Premium subscription plan will come at INR 999 per year and will offer access to Warner Bros and HBO content. However, IPL streaming will continue to be free, along with recently added Bollywood films such as Vikram Vedha.

Last month, Viacom18 signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar content deal with Warner Bros Discovery that would allow JioCinema to stream HBO, Max Original and Warner Bros content in India. 

“We believe the pricing is at the lower end of premium OTT platforms’ annual pricing – Hotstar, Amazon, Netflix whose pricing is in the range of INR 1,000-2,000 for an annual plan. However, we don’t see a large scale paid subscriber base due to this, as the Indian audience is value driven and may not pay this much only for the price of HBO/Warner Bros content,” Karan Taurani, senior vice president & research analyst at Elara Capital, was quoted as saying by Economic Times. 

The deal to stream HBO and Warner Bros content was announced by the OTT as a strategic move just two months after Hotstar announced to stop streaming HBO content including popular shows such as Succession and Game of Thrones.

JioCinema has been making headlines these days with its win of IPL streaming rights from Disney+Hotstar. Five weeks into the IPL 2023, and the OTT platform observed 1,300 Cr video views already. 

While Hotstar lost subscribers by about 3.8 Mn after losing the streaming rights, JioCinema reported that 25 sponsors have lined up so far for the ongoing marquee cricket tournament. 

Earlier, Inc42 reported that as per Media Partners Asia, JioCinema is expected to grab 60% of the total IPL 2023 ad revenue. MPA’s predictions further recorded that for the first time, digital ad revenue will surpass TV ads and JioCinema’s ad GMV could touch $330 Mn – $350 Mn.

Recently, JioCinema also announced that it has undertaken a major project of releasing as many as 100 movies and shows over the next 18-24 months. Produced at a cost of well over INR 2,000 Cr, the movies and TV series span various languages and genres.

Announcing a paid subscription plan when the market is expected to reach INR 581.21 Bn by FY 2027, is to see how it will be accepted. In the meantime, the Indian OTT viewers have plenty of choices in the form of AltBalaji, Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc. 

Interestingly, Amazon has also increased its monthly and quarterly subscription price in India. Though with this membership, users get access to Amazon Music and other benefits on Amazon’s shopping app, monthly usage of Prime Video is going to cost a user more than Netflix. 

Also, Netflix has announced that it is likely to charge extra price to the Indian users for password sharing, soon.