Mukesh Ambani’s music shake-up: Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, chairman and MD of Reliance Industries, now owns South Asia’s largest platform for music. After shaking-up the telecom industry with dirt-cheap data and calling services, Reliance Industries acquired Saavn Media earlier this year.
Reliance Jio and its parent company Reliance Industries signed a deal for the integration of JioMusic with Saavn, which now is South Asia’s largest streaming, entertainment and artist platform. Marking the official integration of the two, Saavn Media, a unit of RIL, announced launched the live-streaming music app.
RIL had acquired the partial stake from the existing shareholders of Saavn for $104 million. With Saavn, RIL has added one more venture to its long list to subsidiaries that provide services related to entertainment and content.
Network 18: Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries owns the mass media and entertainment network. Under RIL’s ownership, the Network 18 group in 2015 acquired ETV Network.
Balaji Telefilms: In July last year, Reliance Industries acquired 24.92% stake in Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms.
Roy Kapur Films: Mukesh Ambani also signed a multi-year deal with Roy Kapur Films for short and long-form content under ‘Jio Originals’.
Eros International: In February this year, RIL also acquired 5% stake in Eros International and announced joint Partnership with Eros India to set-up Rs 1,000 crore each to produce and acquire Indian films and digital originals.
Star India: RIL has recently announced five-year content syndication deal between its video streaming platform JioTV and Star India.
Cable networks: RIL also entered a strategic investment partnership with Den Networks Limited and Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited in October, which will be cable operators in Mukesh Ambani’s kitty as well.
According to a report by America Merrill Lynch (BofAML), about two-thirds of Jio users use data to primarily watch live television and stream videos. The telecom aggregation apps like JioTV and JioCinema are turning into one-stop places for consumers to view all content.
