JioCinema preps for its Disney-Hotstar moment with football World Cup

Tournament likely to give app visibility in run-up to IPL next year; monthly active users seen touching 105 mn

The one thing that has been trending on Twitter this week as the FIFA World Cup began in Qatar, it is the JioCinema app. The mobile app from the Reliance-backed Viacom18 network struggled with technical glitches on the first day of the tournament Sunday.

As the dust settles on the issue, attention is shifting to what JioCinema will achieve by live-streaming the tournament for free. Anil Jayaraj, chief executive officer of Viacom18 Sports, had indicated that free streaming would ensure "easy access" for viewers.

In the run-up to cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL) next year, for which Viacom18 has the streaming rights from 2023 to 2027, this strategy of easy access is critical, say experts. Prior to the FIFA World Cup, JioCinema's lifetime downloads were 400 million, according to sources. The company has indicated that it is targeting India's 700-million-strong internet-enabled mobile devices to improve downloads by free streaming the football World Cup.
 

"The FIFA World Cup will give crucial visibility to the JioCinema app as Viacom18 prepares to digitally broadcast the IPL next year," said Sajal Gupta, chief executive officer of Gurugram-based Kiaos Marketing. "In a sense, the FIFA World Cup is almost like a take-off point for JioCinema because this is the first big tournament that it is live-streaming for free," he said.

While downloads give a sense of how many mobile devices carry the app, it is monthly active users that indicate whether users are engaging with the application.

According to sources, JioCinema's monthly active users may touch 105-110 million over the month-long football tournament from 85-90 million now. Disney+ Hotstar, on the other hand, has monthly active users of around 300 million, according to persons in the know, thanks to the mix of cricket, led by the IPL, and entertainment content available on the app.

In terms of paid subscribers, Disney+ Hotstar has a user base of 61.3 million in the July-September period, which is a 42 per cent jump over the year-ago period, according to its September quarter results released recently. Paid subscribers for the JioCinema app were not immediately available.

The interesting part is that Disney+ Hotstar may stand to lose some of its paid subscribers, say experts, as Viacom18 begins streaming the IPL on its digital platform. "Hotstar could lose at least 30-40 per cent of its paid subscribers as the IPL shifts to Viacom18 next year," says Karan Taurani, senior vice-president, research at Mumbai-based brokerage Elara Capital.

"Disney has the challenge of replenishing this content with new cricket rights as well as more entertainment content," he says. The company took the step in that direction recently by retaining the television and digital rights to telecast International Cricket Council (ICC) tournaments till 2027. It subsequently sub-licensed the television rights to Zee Entertainment, though the digital rights remain with it.

The question is: Will the loss of the IPL rights become the ‘Disney+ Hotstar’ moment for JioCinema? It could well become so, if Viacom18 manages to crack the digital code, according to experts. Sources said that the company is still deliberating whether IPL content should be free or put behind a paywall. The hurdle here is the huge cost of acquisition involved with cricket versus football rights.

While the digital and television rights for the FIFA World Cup were acquired for nearly Rs 450 crore by Viacom18 last year, the IPL digital rights for the 2023-27 media cycle cost the company Rs 23,758 crore. This is slightly more than the IPL television rights picked up by Star for Rs 23,575 crore. It also points to the potential of digital sports broadcasting in India as smartphone penetration and affordable data tariffs continue to grow in the country, say experts.

Digital sports revenue will grow at the rate of 22 per cent over the next four years to touch Rs 4,360 crore in FY26, according to a report released last week by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), KPMG and the Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation. While the TV sports segment will still be larger in size at Rs 9,830 crore in terms of revenue by FY26 (from Rs 7,050 now), its pace of growth will slow to levels of about 7 per cent per annum over the next four years, the report says.

Most broadcasters are already focusing on building their online libraries and content line-up as consumers increasingly migrate online. Apart from football and cricket, Viacom18 has invested in sports such as tennis (ATP Masters 1000 tournament), basketball (NBA) and badminton (Badminton World Federation tournaments).

Disney+ Hotstar, meanwhile, is investing in films and original shows apart from sporting action to beef up its content on the platform.