Reliance Creating Rs 12,000 Crore War-chest To Beat Netflix, Prime, Hotstar In India!

• Reliance is pushing forward on both the broadcasting and digital media front by getting big investors on board. 
• Uday Shankar, the former Star and Disney India chairman and James Murdoch are the partners chosen to develop the media business. 
• The firm has planned to raise funds as large as Rs. 12,000 crores through financial investors to strengthen the media business.
• This decision was made at a time when Zee Entertainment and Sony Pictures Networks India Private Limited have signed multiple agreements to merge and become a union. 
• Voot Select was launched in March 2020 and has gained more than a million subscribers in a year.

Reliance is now investing more of their time and efforts in the media business and is pushing forward both broadcasting and digital media by getting big investors on board. 

Reliance is raising funds

The firm has planned to raise funds as large as Rs. 12,000 crores through financial investors to strengthen the media business. Reliance will also be investing their own capital to help this endeavour. With a large financial backing, Reliance will be ready to take on media giants like Amazon, Netflix and Hotstar. 

Uday Shankar, the former Star and Disney India chairman and James Murdoch are the partners strategically chosen by Reliance to develop the media business. They will play a crucial role in the growth of the media business. 

Reliance’s disruption strategy is going to be very close to what they did with their digital service business – JioReliance is going to be the biggest shareholder but Viacom will most probably lose some stake in the company.

Zee Entertainment and Sony Pictures union

This decision was made very strategically at a time when Zee Entertainment and Sony Pictures Networks India Private Limited (SPNI) have signed multiple agreements to merge and become a union to create India’s largest entertainment network. They have stated that they want to dial up their digital business. The current market leader is Star-Disney, which has a viewership share of 18.6%.

Voot Select is a big competitor to Reliance

Voot Select is a strong competitor in the subscription video-on-demand market. The streaming platform uses a freemium model where some of their content is free and some of their content is behind a paywall on the Voot Select platform. Voot Select was launched in March 2020 and has gained more than a million subscribers in a year. Voot has also been building up its regional content as well as its sports collection. Analysts have said that this is the right content strategy to get more subscribers.