How Ambani JioCinema Is Earning Crores While People Are Streaming IPL For Free

Ambani JioCinema Is Earning Crores While People Are Streaming IPL For Free: With the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 just starting, everyone's looking at JioCinema, owned by Viacom18, for its ambitious plan to stream it for free. JioCinema's strategy is questioned by experts, sparking widespread debate in the media and advertising world.

IPL 2024 opened with 590 million video views on JioCinema, a new record. With 111 million fans tuning in, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) had a thrilling match at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai last Friday.

Ambani's earnings from IPL 2023

A report says 65% of the advertising money went to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), team owners, and TV companies.

Here is why Mukesh Ambani is letting you stream IPL for free on JioCinema when he can charge you big bucks–

The IPL season has started with a bang! JioCinema reported that around 12 crore viewers logged in to watch the opening match, and the numbers are expected to go up as the… pic.twitter.com/EjgxPRyqdf

— Finshots (@finshots) March 29, 2024

In a report by Redseer Strategy Consultants, JioCinema and Star Sports made Rs 4700 crore from ads, while teams got Rs 1450 crore and BCCI got Rs 430 crore. Overall, 65% of the advertising money went to BCCI, teams, and TV companies.

How Ambani Earned So Much Revenue From Free IPL Streaming?

Viacom18 announced all IPL matches would be available for free streaming on JioCinema, the digital media rights holder of the IPL.

The platform relies heavily on advertising to generate revenue because it doesn't have subscription revenue.

Disney+Hotstar and other previous digital partners restricted IPL access to paid subscribers only.

Viacom18 paid Rs 23,758 crore to show IPL games online for five years. That's about the same as Disney Star paid for TV rights.

After spending around Rs 48,000 crore on IPL, Disney Star and Viacom18 want a piece of the 4,000 crore advertising revenue.

Despite offering lower ad rates than its competitors, JioCinema is counting on its large user base and Reliance Group's backing.

It takes about three to ten gigabytes of data to watch an IPL match on your phone or TV for three hours, depending on the device you're using and the quality of your video. One GB of data costs around Rs 14. For one match in the IPL, you'll spend between Rs 28 and Rs 140. For the entire 74-match tournament, you'll probably spend between Rs 2,000 and Rs 10,000.

It's because most viewers won't watch the entire match, so they don't use as much data. An average viewer would only need about 2GB for the IPL.

Jio Plus is a new family plan introduced by Reliance Jio that lets a family of four try out their 5G services for free for a month. Plans start at Rs 399 and go up to Rs 696.

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