The 2024 merger of Disney + Hotstar and JioCinema not only created a content behemoth comprising more than 100 TV channels, it also changed the dynamics of cricket broadcasting in India.
The merged entity owns the TV broadcasting and digital rights of major cricketing tournaments such as the Indian Premier League (IPL), BCCI home matches (2023-27) and ICC tournaments (2024-27). “The merger created a monopoly and BCCI and ICC do not wish to disrupt the pre-decided arrangement,” says Prasanth Shanthakumaran, partner & head of sports sector, KPMG India. “Other broadcasters like Sony and Zee5 are left to dabble with the emerging sports category,” says an industry insider.
Reliance’s integrated ecosystem — sports, studios, and distribution — has been able to turn scale into strategy, say experts, and there are good reasons for its hold over the sports broadcasting space.
Sports marketing expert R Venkatasubramaniam points out, “The combined entity has a wider reach than other broadcasting players like Sony or Zee.” JioHotstar claims to have 800 million viewers across media platforms such as TV, digital and live sports. On the other hand, Sony claims a total viewership of 700 million across digital and TV while Zee has a total domestic reach of 470 million on linear TV. In fact, since the merger JioHotstar has logged blistering growth in IPL viewership alone. Last season, the platform saw a total viewership of 652 million on digital and 537 million on TV.
“There are hardly any competitors left globally, who can compete for these rights,” says Paritosh Joshi, founder, Provocateur Advisory. Companies like Meta and Google have the bandwidth to compete but are also strategic investors in Reliance Jio Platforms.
While spiralling broadcast costs is a major reason that has limited the number of bidders for the tournament, in the long term, a situation of monopoly is not great for anyone on the consumption side of the value chain, says an industry insider. “The broadcaster would be the primary beneficiary with absolute control over content, advertising rates and viewer access. The advertisers might initially feel that targeting was becoming simple but they often suffer from high advertising costs. On their part, viewers end up facing high subscription fees, besides forced exposure to advertising.”
That situation could also lead to a phenomenon often referred to as ad blindness. When viewers are bombarded with excessive or disruptive marketing, they tend to — consciously or unconsciously — ignore or block it.
Joshi says regulators exist specifically to protect consumer interests, specifically in business categories prone to the emergence of monopolies or oligopolies. Communication regulators, like FCC in the US or OffCom in the UK, have traditionally worked to prevent the emergence of “vertical monopolies”, with interests spanning both broadcasting and distribution.
Things seem to be plateauing off in India as far as IPL is concerned. A recent report released by Media Partners Asia states that for the 2028-32 cycle, broadcast rates will remain flat at $5.4 billion, but still more than double the price at which Star TV bought the rights for the 2017-22 cycle. Experts reckon the JioHotstar’s hold can be broken only if we see another consolidation in the broadcasting space or if regulatory bodies raise their voice against vertical integration to limit media companies from owning multiple stages of the production and distribution chain.