India’s JioStar Pours $10 Billion Into Content as Streaming Race Heats Up, Vice Chair Uday Shankar Reveals at WAVES Summit

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As a passionate cinephile, I’m thrilled to share that India’s media behemoth, JioStar, is significantly boosting its content investment this year, pumping around 3.6 billion dollars into programming! Even more exciting, they plan to ramp up their spending even further in the coming years of 2026. This news comes straight from the vice chair, Uday Shankar himself!

At the first-ever World Audio Visual Entertainment Summit held in Mumbai, Shankar shared the company’s assertive approach towards content creation, emphasizing the immense expansion possibilities present within India’s dynamic media industry.

In 2024, the company allocated approximately INR 250,000 crores or $3 billion for content. The following year, this figure rose to INR 30,000 crores or $3.6 billion. For the upcoming year, Shankar predicts that the budget will exceed INR 32,000-35,000 crores, which is around $3.8-4.1 billion. In summary, he mentioned during an interview with Vivek Couto of Media Partners Asia that over the past three years, the company has spent more than $10 billion on content alone.

Following the $8.5 million merger between Reliance’s Jio platforms and Disney’s Indian assets, resulting in the creation of JioStar, the company has successfully challenged industry doubters by expanding both its conventional pay TV service and streaming platform. Currently, JioStar reports over 500 million visitors on its platform, although Shankar refrained from confirming exact subscriber numbers, which stood at 200 million in April.

I’ve heard it said that pay TV is no more. I’ve also heard that the premium streaming market is a relatively small one, with only around 15-20 million subscribers. But here’s the thing – since we joined forces, pay TV has actually gained subscribers, not lost them. That’s because our focus is incredibly sharp.

Regarding the significance of affordability in the Indian market, Shankar emphasized: “If your target audience is limited to just 15-20 million individuals, you can set the price as per your convenience. However, if you aspire to reach 300 million or even a billion people, affordability should be a primary focus in your business strategy.

He attributed market sensitivity to price as a significant factor fueling the expansion of India’s media sector. “The rapid expansion of cable and satellite TV in this nation is primarily due to the mindfulness towards pricing sensitivity shown by the industry leaders. It is crucial that we continue to remain aware of pricing sensitivities.

Shankar expressed his disapproval towards global media companies for not developing new ways to generate income. “Sixty-seven years ago, newspapers relied on ads and subscriptions, and the most recent media company is still relying on these two methods,” he pointed out.

He suggested that India’s video entertainment market, currently valued at $30 billion, could potentially double within the next five years if companies focus on expanding their reach and producing content specifically for Indian audiences. “It’s essential to delve deeper and establish new brands,” Shankar underscored, highlighting opportunities in smaller cities like tier three and four.

The executive likewise discussed the hurdles facing India’s cinematic market, pointing out that although the Hindi-speaking Bollywood industry has faced difficulties, the film industries of southern India are still flourishing. He attributed this disparity to the fact that the evolution of content hasn’t managed to stay in sync with shifting audience tastes in the northern regions.

As a forward-thinking movie critic, I would caution regulators against blindly standardizing regulations across various platforms. “If media companies have yet to innovate at the pace required, regulators are even more lagging behind,” I’d note. “Continuous talk about ‘all screens should be treated equally’… however, such an approach would ultimately diminish the value in both industries.

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2025-05-04 10:46