JioStar added 1.5M TV households in 10 days of IPL, target is 5M by season-end: Kevin Vaz

In a first financial statement ever since the merger of Reliance-Walt Disney, JioStar, has reported a revenue of Rs 9,497 crore with an EBITDA of Rs 266 crore.

During Reliance’s earnings call for the fourth quarter ending March 31, 2025, Kevin Vaz, CEO-Entertainment, JioStar said with 34% TV market share, the broadcaster’s content library is six times that of Netflix or Amazon.

“On TV, we have got a 34% market share. And our content library of 320,000 hours of content is actually six times that of a Netflix or an Amazon. Just from an operational point of view, we launched JioHotstar app with the best features from both the legacy apps. We seamlessly migrated 500 million-plus users and a massive content library within three months,” Vaz said, adding that, “In TV, we lead in seven out of the eight markets that we have across the country. And we are clearly focused to be present across a billion screens, whether it is TV, mobile or CTV in this country.”

Highlighting that pay TV is far from dead, Vaz said that during the first 10 days of IPL, the network grew by 1.5 million and by the end of the tournament, they are eyeing 3-5 million more households.

“On the back of IPL, many people talk about pay television dying in this country, et cetera. But remember, in this country, pay television is still in excess of 100 million and still growing. During the IPL, in the first 10 days, we grew by around 1.5 million (households) and we expect that count to hit at least 3 to 5 by the end of it,” he said.

Talking about revenue, he said, “Our revenue, from the time we launched, is Rs 9,497 crores with an EBITDA of Rs 266 crores.

“We have had a robust financial performance in spite of the weak macroeconomic situation that is there. We have had higher sports revenue led by ICC Trophy as well as IPL. Despite the headwinds, we have kept a very close eye on our costs to ensure that we have profitability and have positive financials for this period,” Vaz said.

While JioStar merger went through on November 14, the OTT app JioHotstar was launched on February 14.

Vaz said, “February 14 is when we launched JioHotstar. We transferred a robust library of 3,20,000 hours of content onto the platform. In addition, we added 250 originals or exclusive titles, which is the highest among any of our contemporaries.

“The most important thing is that this will be the only platform in the world that would have all the biggest American studios on a single plot platform; whether it is Marvel, HBO, Warner Disney, or Peacock and Paramount… you will have all the content on a single platform,” he said.

Across TV and digital, there are about 24 sports channels and it is not just home to all marquee cricket properties like ICC, IPL or BCCI, but also home to the biggest domestic leagues, Pro Kabaddi League or the Indian Super League, and also high-end sports or premium sports, which is the Premier League and Wimbledon.”

With over TV 100 channels in 10 different languages, JioStar is reaching out to about 358 million viewers every day, Vaz said, adding, “If I look at it between these businesses, we reach out on a monthly basis to over 800 million people every month.”

He further said, “within a short period of three and a half months, we have got 280 million paid subscribers. Actually, we put this in perspective. Globally we are very close to Netflix, which gets this from across the world. We have 503 million users who come to our platform on a monthly basis, significant of any of our competition,” he said.

He also mentioned that during the India-New Zealand final for the Champions Trophy, JioHotstar created a world record in concurrency.

“When I say concurrency, it is people coming and watching at the same time, right? This is a world record where we have 61 million people watching a sport at the same time and that shows the strength of the platform.

“If I have to put it into perspective for you many of us might know of the Super Bowl in the US. Let me tell you, their peak concurrency could be one fourth of it. And I think this show that people in spite of having 61 million, we had a seamless, I am saying is viewership for each of these consumers that came on,” he said.