Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which released its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2023 on Friday (July 21), claimed that its OTT app JioCinema generated higher revenue from digital streaming of the Indian Premier League (IPL) compared to its rival Disney Star, which had the TV rights for the marquee cricket tournament.
The company attributed the higher revenue to the large number of advertisers on the platform. “JioCinema’s advertising revenue was higher than TV as the platform attracted more than 13 times the number of advertisers on TV,” RIL said in a statement.
Overall, the net profit of RIL’s media business declined 25.6% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 29 Cr in Q1 FY24. However, its revenue soared 141.7% YoY to INR 3,239 Cr during the quarter.
The company said this revenue growth came on the back of a strong performance by JioCinema.
“Revenue growth of 141.7% was driven by Viacom18, as IPL on JioCinema delivered record advertising revenues. The strong performance of JioCinema was driven by the scale, targeting ability, cost flexibility, measurement, and integration options, which offered significant advantages to advertisers on the platform,” it said.
It must be noted that Viacom18 beat the likes of Amazon, Disney Star, and Sony India to win the digital streaming rights for the IPL in the cricket-crazy country. Viacom18 won the digital rights for the competition for 2023-2027 for INR 20,500 Cr ($2.57 Bn) bid. Meanwhile, Disney Star, which earlier had the digital streaming rights for IPL, won only the right to broadcast IPL on TV in the Indian subcontinent for INR 23,575 Cr.
Following this, JioCinema decided to stream the IPL for free, a move that worked in its favour.
RIL said Jio Cinema has created history as 449 Mn tuned in for IPL, while 120 Mn for final match. It led to total video views of 17 Bn video and an average watch-time of more than 60 minutes per viewer per match.
Earlier this year, the OTT platform had claimed that it saw 5 Cr new app downloads during the first weekend of the T20 tournament.
“JioCinema firmly established itself as the country’s biggest OTT platform, driven by the spectacular performance of IPL,” Reliance said.
RIL is increasingly focusing on becoming a leading player in the OTT space through JioCinema. Earlier this year, the OTT platform signed a multi-year partnership with NBCUniversal and HBO to enhance the options for its premium viewers.
Meanwhile, RIL’s telecom business Reliance Jio posted a 12.5% rise in its consolidated net profit to INR 5,098 Cr in Q1 FY24 from INR 4,530 Cr in the year-ago quarter.
Overall, RIL saw a 5.9% YoY decline in its consolidated profit after tax to INR 18,258 Cr in Q1 FY24.