Reliance-backed streaming service JioCinema on Thursday (May 11) said that the platform saw over 1,300 Cr video views in the first five weeks of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the T20 cricket tournament which it is streaming for free.

In addition, the average time spent per viewer per match touched 60 minutes, the company said in a statement.

JioCinema clocked a peak concurrency of 2.23 Cr during the Chennai Super Kings vs Rajasthan Royals match. Five days later, JioCinema broke this record with a concurrency of 2.4 Cr during the Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Chennai Super Kings fixture, it added.

“JioCinema continues to grow from strength to strength every week and it is based on clear evidence of consumer’s outright preference of catching the TATA IPL on digital,” Anil Jayaraj, sports CEO of Viacom18, said.

During the opening weekend of IPL, JioCinema saw 5 Cr new app downloads. It clocked over 147 Cr video views during the first weekend and attracted 10 Cr new viewers, the company said.

Make Or Break Content For OTT?

Viacom18 outbid Disney+Hotstar last year to win the digital streaming rights for the marquee cricket tournament for a whopping INR 23,758 Cr for the 2023-2027 period. While Disney Star retained the TV rights for the IPL for the five-year period, JioCinema decided to stream the IPL for free to establish itself as the top player.

The move to stream the popular tournament for free in the cricket-crazy country seems to be paying dividends for JioCinema as it has attracted 26 sponsors so far for the ongoing season of the IPL. While Gaming unicorn Dream11 has joined as the co-presenting sponsor for digital streaming of IPL, JioMart, PhonePe and Tiago have joined as co-powered sponsors. Other new-age companies such as Rapido, Amazon and Spotify have also associated with JioCinema for the tournament.

Meanwhile, connected TV (CTV) ad spots (average ad spots per match) also rose to 94 in week 4 of the IPL from 78 spots in week 1, seeing a 20% growth, as per a report by the audience measurement and advertising research firm TAM Media, said.

On the other hand, the loss of IPL’s digital streaming rights has hit JioCinema’s rival Disney+Hotstar hard. It lost 4.6 Mn subscribers during the second quarter that ended April 1, 2023. Disney+Hotstar’s paid subscriber base reduced to 52.9 Mn during the quarter, a decline of 8% from 57.5 Mn paid members in the previous quarter.

As JioCinema is also upping its game in the original and licensed content space, a further loss of market share for Disney+Hotstar in the Indian OTT market cannot be ruled out. Besides these two players, others like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Zee5 are also vying for a big share of the India market.

According to a report by RBSA Advisors, India’s video OTT market is expected to reach a size of $12.5 Bn by 2030 from about $1.5 Bn in 2021 on the back of access to better networks, and improved digital connectivity and smartphone access.