India’s largest telecom operator, Reliance Jio, has said that it will stop free streaming of the Indian Premier League (IPL). This moves comes two years after Jio first started streaming the T20 league. IPL is India’s most followed and most watched sporting event.
The 2024 season of the IPL was watched by 620 million viewers on Viacom18-owned JioCinema, which was a 38 per cent increase on the previous campaign.
In 2023, Disney Star retained the TV rights in the subcontinent for ₹23,575 crore, while Viacom 18 secured the digital rights in the same region and media rights (both TV and digital) across three global regions – Australia + New Zealand, the UK and South Africa – for ₹23,758 crore.
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Earlier this year, Reliance announced the launch of JioStar. It is the joint venture formed with the merger of Viacom18 and Star India. The new platform is called JioHotstar, bringing together JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar. According to Reuters the JV runs more than 100 TV channels and streaming apps in India’s $28-billion media and entertainment market.
A month ago Reuters had reported that the Reliance-Disney JV will no longer offer free streaming for IPL cricket matches, as was the case in 2023 and 2024 in the old JioCinema platform. Now the platform will adopt a hybrid model where subscription kicks in after content consumption reaches a threshold.
The new recharge plan, which starts at ₹299 for Jio’s mobile users, will enable them to watch the IPL. The new plan also includes a 50-day trial of Reliance Jio’s, broadband internet services, to help boost home internet dominance with high-speed sports streaming.
The plan comes into effect for the upcoming season of the IPL which gets underway on March 22 and runs till May 25.
The Sportz Planet Desk
