After offering the service for free for two weeks, India’s JioCinema Premium has unveiled an INR 999 ($12.13) annual subscription for Warner Bros. Discovery content.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is behind Viacom18 and JioCinema. Warner Bros. Discovery and Viacom18 recently signed a multi-year agreement making JioCinema India’s new streaming home for HBO, Max Original and Warner Bros. content from May. The WBD content had previously aired on Disney’s Star TV platform. But the deal with Star expired at the end of March.
Television series premiere on JioCinema on the same day as the US. The deal includes current and future seasons of HBO’s “House of The Dragon,” “The Last of Us,” “Succession,” and “The White Lotus,” and returning seasons of “True Detective: Night Country,” “Euphoria,” Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty’ and ‘Perry Mason’.
The popular Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament continues to be streamed for free on JioCinema, as do Indian-produced premium films such as ‘Vikram Vedha’, starring Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan.
Analyst Karan Taurani of Elara Capital said: “We believe the price is at the lower end of premium OTT [streaming] platforms annual prices – Hotstar, Amazon, Netflix whose price is in the range of INR 1,000-2,000 plus for an annual subscription; however, we don’t see a massive paid subscriber base because of this as Indian audiences are value driven and may not pay as much just for HBO/Warner Bros content.
“Disney+ Hotstar has the highest paid subscription base (61 million paid subscribers – pre IPL) in India, mainly due to IPL, global content, web series, movies and catch-up TV content; to scale up to that level for a paid subscriber base, JioCinema will need to expand its content offerings,” Taurani added.
RIL also owns India’s dominant mobile phone and broadband internet providers. Most Indian streaming services are also available through telecom providers at discounted rates.
JioCinema can also bundle the HBO/Warner Bros content for free for its premium Jio fiber subscribers or postpaid cellular subscribers, which have a higher ARPU [average revenue per user]because they have the best control in the last mile due to a large 4G subscriber base and they may not need to have an affiliation with a third party OEM [original equipment manufacturer] or mobile operator,” Taurani said.
Meanwhile, Jio Studios, the content arm of RIL, which had unveiled a slate of 100 new movies and TV shows to be played on Reliance’s streaming platforms, has added several Bhojpuri-language movies.
The films include ‘Maai’, starring Dinesh lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ and Amrapali Dubey; “Bewafa Sanam” (Pawan Singh, Smriti Sinha); “Khiladi” (Pradeep Pandey Chintu, Sahar Afsa); “Sajan Re Jhooth Mat Bolo” (Pradeep Pandey Chintu, Harshika Poonacha); “Tu Tu Main Main” (Ritesh Pandey, Yamini Singh, Madhu Sharma, Vikrant Singh); “Sanam Mere Humraz” (Ritesh Pandey, Harshika); “Tujhe Dekha To Ye Jana Sanam” (Khesari Lal Yadav, Yamini Singh); “Atit – Ek Prem Kahani” (Ritesh Pandey, Anara Gupta, Sailesha); “Suraksha” (Yash Kumar, Sudiksha Jha, Harshita Kashyap), “Aaj Phir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai” (Pawan Singh, Smriti Sinha, Tanushree Chatterji); “London Jake Phas Gaya Yaar” (Arvind Akela Kallu, Priyanka Rewari); “Des Me Nikla Hoga Chand” (Pradeep Pandey Chintu, Sahar Afsa); “Piya Pardesiya” (Ritesh Pandey, Priyanka Rewri); “Do Bihari Sab Pe Bhari” (Ankush-Raja, Akanksha Dubey, Priyanshu); and “Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gam” (Pradeep Pandey Chintu, Amrapali Dubey).
All these movies are streamed for free on JioCinema.