Latest news with #APOS2025
Economic Times
26-06-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
JioStar urges content producers to embrace balanced deals with shared risk model
At APOS 2025, Garg shared a roadmap to strengthen the economics of streaming in India through targeted investment, innovative revenue models, and long-term scale. As India's media market matures, content creation and financing are emerging as key areas of disruption, with broadcasters and streamers increasingly pushing for a more balanced model in which content producers share both the risk and the reward, marking a shift away from one-sided deals and toward co-investment that is already gaining traction. That was the message from Prateek Garg, Managing Director of Marigold Park Capital, an affiliate of Bodhi Tree Systems, which holds a 7% stake in Reliance and Disney backed JioStar, which runs over 100 TV channels and a streaming platform JioHotstar. Garg said the traditional model, where platforms and broadcasters bear the full financial risk of content that may or may not succeed, is no longer sustainable. 'For over a decade, the risk of content has been borne by the broadcaster and media players,' he said. 'It's time the risk reward equation gets more balanced.'As Indian platforms aim to serve the next generation of viewers, they are calling on their content partners to move toward a more collaborative model. This means co-investing in content and sharing in its performance outcomes.'We don't want to be the ones taking the burden of somebody else producing and us taking the full risk of that content not working,' Garg said, adding, 'That movement has already started. We will accelerate that in the next 20 to 18 months.' He also said that partners must be willing to share the risk, noting, 'It won't be a free ride.' At present, broadcasters either commission or acquire content from production companies. In the case of commissioned content, production companies receive a fixed margin on production costs, while acquired content offers them the potential for upside depending on remains the largest cost driver for broadcasters and streamers, with expenses rising steadily each year. JioStar vice-chairman Uday Shankar recently said the company's content investments will reach $10 billion between FY24 and added that media companies must keep investing to stay relevant as entertainment options grow and big tech platforms compete for consumers' time and attention. At APOS 2025, during a session titled Transforming the Media Investment Playbook: Case Studies & Perspectives with Media Partners Asia's Vivek Couto, Garg shared a roadmap to strengthen the economics of streaming in India through targeted investment, innovative revenue models, and long-term scale. 'We don't want to build a service for just 15 to 20 million viewers in India. It's a big market,' Garg said. 'Our model is: how do we become relevant for the largest part of society? That's where the top of the funnel will always remain our biggest priority.'JioStar's streaming platform JioHotstar, formed through the merger of Disney+ Hotstar and JioCinema, completed platform integration in a record four months. 'We migrated two apps with different business models into one app, zero consumer loss, zero monetisation loss,' Garg next 12 to 18 months, he said, will focus on innovating the revenue model. 'Globally, people have been slightly lazy when it comes to business model innovation in streaming. You'll see a lot of new things from our team.'While cricket has been central to user acquisition, Garg said JioStar is now investing in building platform stickiness beyond the sport. 'Cricket is the best aggregator we have. But with the support of cricket, we need to build new muscles so that by the time cricket gets over, we have a platform that isn't dependent on it.'The company is working on content diversification, including micro-dramas, and is building a loyalty programme aimed at daily engagement. 'Every Indian with access to the internet should come to us every day. That's the north star we're chasing.'Garg emphasised that streaming businesses must be capital intensive to compete at scale. 'This is not an industry where you can compromise at the top of the funnel,' he said. 'Don't run a business as usual model. One of the big tech companies will gobble you up in your own market.'Despite linear television's structural decline, Garg believes it still holds value. "The TV universe is declining, but the good part for our business is that we are driving a reallocation of revenues and gaining share from other broadcasters,' he competes with Zee, Sony, Sun TV, Netflix, and Prime Video in both the television and streaming TV, meanwhile, is on a steep growth curve. 'Fifty million people watched the IPL on connected TVs. As the shift from linear to connected happens, we're best positioned to capture that value.'
Time of India
26-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
JioStar urges content producers to embrace balanced deals with shared risk model
As India's media market matures, content creation and financing are emerging as key areas of disruption, with broadcasters and streamers increasingly pushing for a more balanced model in which content producers share both the risk and the reward, marking a shift away from one-sided deals and toward co-investment that is already gaining traction. That was the message from Prateek Garg , Managing Director of Marigold Park Capital , an affiliate of Bodhi Tree Systems, which holds a 7% stake in Reliance and Disney backed JioStar , which runs over 100 TV channels and a streaming platform JioHotstar. Garg said the traditional model, where platforms and broadcasters bear the full financial risk of content that may or may not succeed, is no longer sustainable. 'For over a decade, the risk of content has been borne by the broadcaster and media players,' he said. 'It's time the risk reward equation gets more balanced.' by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like The Simple Morning Habit for a Flatter Belly After 50! Lulutox Undo As Indian platforms aim to serve the next generation of viewers, they are calling on their content partners to move toward a more collaborative model. This means co-investing in content and sharing in its performance outcomes. 'We don't want to be the ones taking the burden of somebody else producing and us taking the full risk of that content not working,' Garg said, adding, 'That movement has already started. We will accelerate that in the next 20 to 18 months.' Live Events He also said that partners must be willing to share the risk, noting, 'It won't be a free ride.' At present, broadcasters either commission or acquire content from production companies. In the case of commissioned content, production companies receive a fixed margin on production costs, while acquired content offers them the potential for upside depending on performance. Content remains the largest cost driver for broadcasters and streamers, with expenses rising steadily each year. JioStar vice-chairman Uday Shankar recently said the company's content investments will reach $10 billion between FY24 and FY26. He added that media companies must keep investing to stay relevant as entertainment options grow and big tech platforms compete for consumers' time and attention. At APOS 2025 , during a session titled Transforming the Media Investment Playbook: Case Studies & Perspectives with Media Partners Asia's Vivek Couto, Garg shared a roadmap to strengthen the economics of streaming in India through targeted investment, innovative revenue models, and long-term scale. 'We don't want to build a service for just 15 to 20 million viewers in India. It's a big market,' Garg said. 'Our model is: how do we become relevant for the largest part of society? That's where the top of the funnel will always remain our biggest priority.' JioStar's streaming platform JioHotstar, formed through the merger of Disney+ Hotstar and JioCinema, completed platform integration in a record four months. 'We migrated two apps with different business models into one app, zero consumer loss, zero monetisation loss,' Garg said. The next 12 to 18 months, he said, will focus on innovating the revenue model. 'Globally, people have been slightly lazy when it comes to business model innovation in streaming. You'll see a lot of new things from our team.' While cricket has been central to user acquisition, Garg said JioStar is now investing in building platform stickiness beyond the sport. 'Cricket is the best aggregator we have. But with the support of cricket, we need to build new muscles so that by the time cricket gets over, we have a platform that isn't dependent on it.' The company is working on content diversification, including micro-dramas, and is building a loyalty programme aimed at daily engagement. 'Every Indian with access to the internet should come to us every day. That's the north star we're chasing.' Garg emphasised that streaming businesses must be capital intensive to compete at scale. 'This is not an industry where you can compromise at the top of the funnel,' he said. 'Don't run a business as usual model. One of the big tech companies will gobble you up in your own market.' Despite linear television's structural decline, Garg believes it still holds value. "The TV universe is declining, but the good part for our business is that we are driving a reallocation of revenues and gaining share from other broadcasters,' he said. JioStar competes with Zee, Sony, Sun TV, Netflix, and Prime Video in both the television and streaming space. Connected TV, meanwhile, is on a steep growth curve. 'Fifty million people watched the IPL on connected TVs. As the shift from linear to connected happens, we're best positioned to capture that value.'
Mint
25-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
JioStar banks on $500 mn engine to sustain IPL as India's most monetized league
MUMBAI: With a staggering 1.19 billion viewers and over 514 billion minutes of watch time, Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 has set a new benchmark for live sports in India. But behind the record numbers is a strategic gamble that Sanjog Gupta, chief executive—sports and live experiences, JioStar, says goes far beyond cricket. Speaking at the APOS 2025 summit in Bali, Gupta revealed that the company has pumped more than $500 million to build a platform-led sports ecosystem, in addition to the rights acquisition costs, over the past 15 years. 'While numbers around acquisition prices for sports rights tend to be thrown around a lot, what at times gets missed is the sheer investment that a network such as ours has made to grow those properties,' Gupta said. That cumulative investment across marketing, production and technology over the last decade and a half has crossed half a billion dollars. 'That is outside of what we paid for the acquisition of rights.' The payoff? Tata IPL 2025 has emerged not only as India's biggest sports broadcast in terms of reach, but also its most monetised. The season saw participation from over 425 advertisers, including 270 first-time brands across 40 unique categories. JioStar also introduced third-party measurement through Nielsen for 32 brands, pushing for more transparency and performance-linked advertising metrics. JioHotstar, the digital home of the cricket league, now has over 300 million subscribers and recorded 1.04 billion app downloads during the season, Gupta said. Viewership on mobile touched 417 million, while connected TVs (CTVs) added another 235 million. The IPL final alone drew 426 million viewers—189 million on TV and 237 million on digital—with a peak concurrency, or the maximum number of viewers watching simultaneously on the two platforms, of 55.2 million. More than the scale, Gupta emphasized the shift in design philosophy. 'We've built a platform for infinite consumer journeys—where every fan can have a personalized, immersive experience depending on the device, language and level of engagement,' he said. This meant deploying features like MaxView 3.0 (a vertical, multi-camera experience used by 30% of mobile viewers), 360-degree VR streaming, voice-assisted search on CTV, AI-powered instant highlights and even Indian Sign Language interpretation. For 44% of mobile viewers, the tournament also became interactive, with the play-along game 'Jeeto Dhan Dhana Dhan' becoming a hit. Yet, all of this came with a clear goal: to turn sport from an episodic event into a full-blown content funnel. 'Sport is our strongest recruitment funnel,' Gupta said. 'The idea is to bring fans in during live events and then take them on a broader content journey, whether it's an original series like Criminal Justice, or a Hindi entertainment show promoted off the back of a live match.' This ecosystem-driven thinking is at the heart of JioStar's monetization model, which blends free access, deep engagement and eventual subscription. 'It's not 'pay at the gate'. Our model mirrors real life, you walk into a mall, explore and then decide what to buy. That's how we want users to experience content,' Gupta explained. While IPL remains its flagship event, JioStar has also been growing other sports properties. Gupta claimed that viewership of the English Premier League on their platforms has grown 3.5x in the past five years, thanks to regional language feeds and cultural localization. At the other end of the spectrum, he said, kabaddi is being nurtured into a year-round proposition. 'We're not trying to be known for one genre—we want to shape India's entire media consumption economy.' Demographic data from IPL 2025 supports that ambition. Nearly half (47%) of Star Sports viewers were women. Regional language viewership surged—Telugu rose 87%, Tamil 52%, Kannada 65% and Haryanvi 47% year-on-year, making the tournament one of the most localised national events in India's media history. The strategy rests on what Gupta calls the four pillars of the digital media economy: attention (reaching the user), passion (getting them to care), affiliation (making them loyal) and action (getting them to act). 'No genre activates all four segments as well as live sport,' he said, making a case for sports as a core growth engine, not just content. Still, for all its highs, the model will be tested on sustainability. Offering free access at the entry point, building heavy tech layers and running personalised infrastructure for a billion-plus base is capital-intensive. Gupta is betting that scale, segmentation and cross-genre monetization will make the equation work. IPL 2025, he said, 'was a season where the lines between sport, storytelling, and shared experiences truly blurred. It's no longer about just broadcasting matches, it's about making every moment move millions.' The stakes are immense, the investment deep and the expectations sky-high. Whether JioStar's $500 million engine can keep firing at full throttle across seasons will decide not just the future of IPL, but the blueprint for India's next digital media leap.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
APOS Co-Founder Vivek Couto On Expectations For 2025 Event & How Asia Has Become A Key Battleground For The Future Of Entertainment
The latest iteration of the APOS conference features a who's-who of top-level film, TV and media players changing the course of the business in Asia. Here's just a small sample: DAZN co-founder James Rushton, Candle Media CEO Kevin Mayer, Foxtel boss Patrick Delany, Google APAC President Sanjay Gupta, iQiyi's Yang Xianghua and Kaichen Li, Netflix Korean content chief Don Kang, Nine Entertainment's Amanda Laing, Owl & Co. CEO founder Hernan Lopez and Jiyeon Song from Korean micro-drama platform TopReels. More from Deadline David Harbour On Feeling Relieved Over 'Stranger Things' Ending: "You're Having To Play A Lot Of The Same Beat" List Of Hollywood & Media Layoffs From Paramount To Warner Bros Discovery To CNN & More MTV Entertainment Studios, Comedy Central Executives Depart Amid Paramount Layoffs Add to that bosses from JioStar, Prime Video, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros Discovery, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Disney, Paramount, TikTok, TBS, BBC Studios and Banijay and it's clear why APOS has become a key fixture on the calendar. They've got plenty to discuss this year. APOS Executive Director and co-founder Vivek Couto is gearing up for his C-suite get-together in Bali with a global market facing a fast-changing outlook. Tech giants in Asia such as Google, Meta, Netflix and Amazon have been benefitting from growth in mobile screen, smart TV and fixed broadband usage across the continent, while traditional players have been rolling out new services and attempting to keep their linear businesses alive. 'At APOS 2025, we're focused on helping the industry navigate through disruption and opportunity,' says Couto, the veteran analyst who led the creation and is also Managing Director of Media Partners Asia. 'The next wave of monetization is here, and it's not just about more eyeballs, but better economics. We've designed a program that addresses the big shifts: the monetization of sport and entertainment, the role of AI across the stack, and how platforms are scaling in the big local markets that matter.' So what are the pressing live issues? Couto says one is that both the global giants and scaled local businesses need to find 'more robust' ways of making money and investing on content to seal their spots in the new digital ecosystem. 'Our focus is how that transition and monetization keeps pace, and who has the strategies to drive it,' he adds. APOS begins on June 24 with an invite-only CEO Forum, followed by a welcome reception at the Ayana Resort. Day 1 of the conference (June 25) is a big one for film and TV. An early highlight will be Google's Gupta discussing the power of storytelling in his talk on Asia's digital future. 'Google clearly has a view on the impact of AI on content creation and the growth of creators, who are monetizing through social platforms,' says Couto. 'It could also be a very big opportunity for long-form creators. Everyone is experimenting with AI.' We hear that on the same morning, Netflix's Kang, who is VP of Content, Korea, will discuss the performance of Squid Game Season 2, just days ahead of Season 3's launch. 'Netflix has a view on how it did, and Kang also wants to address [emerging perceptions] of a lull in the Korean creative economy. Korea is critical for Netflix, as they'll be investing around $700M there in next 3-4 years.' Ex-Disney boss Mayer will also address how to scale storytelling, while former Fox Networks boss Lopez will discuss the economics of streaming from the perspective of his consultancy Owl & Co. Prime Video India execs will talk about monetizing the explosion in streaming in India, while JioStar execs appear several times as their JioHotstar platform continues with its mission to be a service for a 'billion screens' across India. Couto says the shift towards short-form content, which has blown up in China and Korea through micro-drama platforms such as TopReels, is dictating how several companies are approaching content investments in 2025. Other points of discussion will be the strong theatrical growth in Indonesia, HBO Max's debut in Australia, the expanding addressable TV ads market in India and sports IP. Couto expects much talk to center on how companies should exploit the changing nature of entertainment consumption, giving the example of Disney, whose consumer products, parks and experiences business now generates over 50% of its operating profit on a global basis. This is one place where the traditional players might have the upper hand over the likes of Netflix and YouTube. 'The difference for players like Disney and Warner, in particular, is they've got a lot of revenues coming out of consumer products,' he says. 'It emphasizes the need to consider all revenue streams beyond screen entertainment.' In a similar vein, Couto notes that Google will address why YouTube is looking into subscription models, 'driven by the need to sustain growth beyond ad revenues.' Day 2 morning will be focused on AI – no surprises there, as the conversation moves towards digital companies such as Sandbox, StoryFit and TikTok. After lunch, there will be a session on U.S. content's impact in APAC, with Chris Taylor, MD APAC, Television Distribution, Networks & DTC at NBCUniversal; Amanda Laing, MD Streaming & Broadcast, Nine Entertainment; Adam Herr, SVP of Distribution, APAC at Sony Pictures Entertainment and Toshi Honda, COO at U-Next appearing together on a panel. Nicholas Simon, founder and CEO of The White Lotus Season 3 co-producer Indochina Productions will appear in a chat about Asia's creative economy going global, alongside Banijay Asia CEO Deepak Dhar and Disalada Disayanon from Kantana Group. Storytelling in the fast-growing theatrical market of Indonesia, the micro-drama boom, sports streaming and media investments will also be on the menu. The key focuses at APOS this year in terms of markets are India, where addressable TV ad growth is supercharging streaming revenues; Japan, which Couto says has 'really come of age as a $5.5B premium VOD market, led by SVOD and premium AVOD'; Indonesia, where the theatrical market has exploded; and Australia, which he predicts will see more big-scale M&A following DAZN's deal for paycaster Foxtel. Ulitmately, the entire event will be geared towards what comes next. 'As we go into this year's APOS, Netflix, Disney, Amazon and YouTube and scaled local platforms such as JioStar, U-Next and Foxtel are all generating profit and more and more cash,' says Couto. 'The key question is now about maintaining the balance between growing margins and investing to drive new growth.' Best of Deadline List Of Hollywood & Media Layoffs From Paramount To Warner Bros Discovery To CNN & More Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds A Full Timeline Of Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni's 'It Ends With Us' Feud In Court, Online & In The Media
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Disney Hack: Man Pleads Guilty to Stealing 1.1 Terabytes of Data Over Slack
A California man has pleaded guilty to hacking a Disney employee's personal computer last year and stealing more than 1 terabyte of confidential data. Santa Clarita resident Ryan Mitchell Kramer, 25, pleaded guilty to two felony charges, including one count of accessing a computer and obtaining information and one count of threatening to damage a protected computer. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison. More from Variety APOS 2025 Draws Top Media Execs to Bali for 15th Edition Disney to Preview 'Zootopia 2,' 'Elio,' 'Toy Story 5' and More at This Year's Annecy Festival Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, Disney and More Media Stocks Rally as Trump Sets 90-Day Pause on Tariffs for Some Countries According to the plea agreement, in early 2024 Kramer posted a computer program on various online platforms that appeared to be used to create AI-generated art, when it really contained a malicious file to gain access to victims' computers. Between April and May 2024, a Disney employee downloaded the program, and Kramer gained access to the victim's personal and work accounts, including a non-public Disney Slack channel. Kramer dowloaded approximately 1.1 terabytes of confidential data from thousands of Disney Slack channels. In July, Kramer contacted the victim by pretending to be a member of a fake Russian hacktivist group called 'Nullbulge' and threatned to leak their personal information and Disney Slack data. On July 12, Kramer publicly released the data, including the victim's bank, medical, and personal information on multiple online platforms. According to the plea deal, at least two other On July 15, the hack was made public in a report by the Wall Street Journal, and Disney said it was investigating the breach. The FBI is also investigating the hack. Kramer admitted that he hacked the computers of at least two other victims through his malware. He is expected to make his first appearance in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles in the coming weeks. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week What's Coming to Netflix in May 2025 What's Coming to Disney+ in May 2025
