With the Indian Premier League (IPL) season now underway, advertisers are increasingly directing their attention towards JioCinema. While advertisers usually allocate their digital ad budget across multiple platforms, the draw of JioCinema’s free streaming service is proving to be irresistible this year. In anticipation of a viewership of 550 million, a significant increase from 2022’s 300 million, advertisers are finding JioCinema to be an appealing option to concentrate the majority of their digital ad budget for the IPL, in order to achieve maximum brand exposure.
Viacom18’s decision to stream the IPL matches for free caused a significant disruption in the Indian OTT industry, given the company’s Rs. 23,758 crore investment for acquiring the digital rights to the tournament for five years. This move has led to newer trends among advertisers, including a sharper focus on Jio Cinema, as they look for alternative ways to promote their brand and reach their target audience.
IPL generates a lot of content and attracts a large audience across platforms. IPL-related content is typically posted on various platforms such as social media like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, as well as sports-related websites and news portals. These platforms earn money by displaying ads, promoting sponsors, and running various marketing campaigns related to the IPL.
“Advertisers’ rush to be on Jio Cinema is expected to help the platform surpass last year’s digital spends by brands, which was close to Rs 1500 crore,” said a media buyer who did not wish to be named.
All thanks to ‘free streaming’.
Another media buyer working with multiple clients that are buying inventory on JioCinema says, “IPL always had a free universe but it was restricted and now it is going to open up and help in building stickiness. While experience also has a big role to play in building stickiness, the opportunity for advertisers to reach such a huge audience in one place is an exciting prospect. In fact, it’s quite possible that some marketers will choose to focus exclusively on JioCinema for their IPL ad spends this season, rather than spreading their budget across multiple platforms.
The 2022 FIFA World Cup was a curtain raiser demonstrating the power of free streaming in India.
As per Comscore data, JioCinema, which reached an average of about 2.7 million unique visitors (UV) a month, saw a spike in users in November 2022, when the first match of the 2022 FIFA World Cup was available to users to stream, free of charge. The UV numbers jumped from 2.36 million in October 2022 to a massive 22.7 million in November 2022. These numbers do not include the CTV part of the equation, which would have likely seen a very similar trend.
This year’s IPL is expected to not only increase digital audience bandwidth but also overall ad revenues. According to a KPMG-CII report, the digital revenue for sports is projected to grow from Rs 1540 crore in FY21 to Rs 4360 crore in FY26, with a CAGR of 22 per cent. This growth is expected to be driven by an organic increase in the number of OTT viewers in India, as well as the rising consumption of sports on OTT platforms, fueled by the convenience of anywhere viewing.
JioCinema has emerged as a major player in this space, and with the growing popularity of IPL, it remains to be seen how this shift towards JioCinema will impact the wider digital ad market in India.
Disclosure: Storyboard18 is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.