JioCinema rolls out premium pricing plan for ₹999 a year

New Delhi: Reliance Industries-owned video streaming service JioCinema has rolled out a premium pricing plan for ₹999 a year, upping its game for the Indian OTT market that hosts foreign players such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video as well as several homegrown entities.

The subscription plan gives access to premium Hollywood content on up to four devices while live sports and local language entertainment shall remain free. Last month, Warner Bros. Discovery and Viacom18 inked a multi-year agreement that made JioCinema the new platform for HBO, Max Original, and Warner Bros. content in India. The deal includes current and future seasons of HBO’s series such as House of The Dragon, The Last of Us, Succession and The White Lotus, and returning seasons of True Detective: Night Country, Euphoria, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty and Perry Mason. Also featured as part of the agreement are HBO Original series including The Idol, White House Plumbers, The Sympathizer and The Regime. In addition, HBO’s series and documentaries, including Game of Thrones, Sex & The City, Big Little Lies, Chernobyl and Veep, will be available for users.

The JioCinema subscription plan is cheaper compared to rivals like Netflix whose mobile-only plan also costs ₹149 per month. The annual Amazon Prime Video membership costs ₹1,499 though there is a mobile-only edition available for ₹599 a year.

Last month, Jio Studios announced a plan to create a repertoire of 100 movies and web originals to bolster the streaming platform’s standing and retain customer engagement after the end of the Indian Premier League (IPL) season. Last year, Viacom18 had won the digital rights to the tournament by bidding a staggering ₹23,758 crore. The company started work on several movie projects in the pre-pandemic days and is now likely to directly stream a few on its OTT platform, and some others may be released in theatres.

To start with, the company will premiere Shahid Kapoor-starrer Bloody Daddy directly on the platform in June. It also has other films and web originals ready for release, including those starring Rajkummar Rao, Vicky Kaushal and Vijay Sethupathi. In 2019, Reliance had said that it would release one film every week as its first-day-first-show offering.

“Our vision is to power stories that are from, by and for India and Bharat and tell stories that not only entertain but also have a purpose. We partner with storytellers in every Indian language and take the stories mainstream. Our mission is to make in India and show the world is vast and inclusive and will ensure growth of the entire value chain,” Jyoti Deshpande, president of RIL’s media and content business, had said in an earlier statement.