JioHotstar is making a multi-million pound bet on South Indian content. The streaming giant has become the first company to announce an investment of INR 4,000 crore, roughly £380 million, for the next five years to cement its leading position in the booming regional market driving the highest growth for the platform.
This comes after an encouraging growth in consumption: the platform saw 70 percent increase in watch time for South content, much more than the national average. "The South has become a powerhouse of content, where audiences are showing much better retention and engagement in terms of complete series views and genre diversity," says Krishnan Kutty of JioStar.
As part of this push, JioCinema plans an ambitious 1,500 hours of new South programming over the next 12 months, covering films, original series and non-scripted shows. The new slate, which was announced in Chennai, TN, at an event featuring many stars, includes returning franchises such as Kerala Crime Files S3 and Heartbeat S3, along with new originals like Kaattaan and Vishakha.
It also signed a letter of intent with the Government of Tamil Nadu, further signalling its long-term commitment. This would focus on talent development, infrastructure expansion and accelerating the creative economy of the state. This is expected to create several thousand jobs.
This is even as the competition from international players gains in intensity. However, it is not only films that are driving growth on the platform-according to Chief Marketing Officer Sushant Sreeram, every format is seeing hit shows such as Heartbeat clock 100 million hours of consumption. Regional stories are finding takers across the country, with over 80 percent of Malayalam watch time now being driven by viewers outside Kerala. JioHotstar is all over the belief that local will be the leitmotif of streaming.
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