
Connected TVs, mobiles and telco packs: How JioStar plans to take IPL to a billion screens this season
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Reliance Industries Ltd-backed JioStar is betting on “unprecedented viewing" for the 18th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which kicks off on Saturday night, as the newly merged media entity brings both TV and digital rights under one umbrella. The unified rights ownership marks a reset for IPL distribution, offering scale across platforms without internal competition, Kiran Mani, chief executive officer-digital, JioStar, said in an interview with Mint.
“For the first time, we’re not talking about digital versus linear TV. Both are growing and relevant. What excites me most is that we will activate a billion screens during IPL." Last year, mobile and connected televisions (CTV) combined saw 600 million viewers, while linear TV reached 525 million.
“Our hope is to cross a billion this time." CTV viewership, Mani said, has nearly doubled from 20–22 million smart TVs last year to over 35 million this year, driven by increased adoption and an upgraded large-screen experience featuring multi-camera angles and entertainment overlays. On mobile, JioStar has segmented its strategy by device category—from Jio Bharat phones to the latest iPhones—tailoring the experience based on user behaviour, bandwidth constraints, and interactivity demand. Vertical viewing, tested in earlier seasons, will now be a core format, allowing key moments and highlights to be surfaced natively.
JioHotstar, the streaming platform, will also introduce voice search, enabling users to retrieve highlights or match events in real time. “We’re combining real-time metadata tagging with voice tech. Users can say ‘show me Kohli’s boundaries’ and get that instantly," Mani said.
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