iWorld
JioHotstar bets Rs 4,000 crore on the south’s storytelling surge
CHENNAI: JioHotstar is staking Rs 4,000 crore on a wager that southern India’s creative revolution will define the country’s entertainment future. The streaming platform, barely ten months into its existence, unveiled plans on 9th December to pump that sum into building what it calls the country’s most powerful south-focused content and creator ecosystem. Over the next 12 months, 1,500 hours of fresh southern programming will roll out.
The Head of the Subscription Video-on-Demand Business and Chief Marketing Officer at JioStar, Sushant Sreeram, along with the Head of the Entertainment Business, South Cluster at JioStar, Krishnan Kutty, led the announcement. The scale of investment signals not just growth but a long-term conviction that southern narratives will fuel India’s next entertainment surge.
The platform’s rationale is straightforward: southern India has rapidly emerged as one of JioHotstar’s strongest growth engines, outperforming the rest of the country in subscription depth, retention and connected television adoption. Southern entertainment on the platform has achieved 99.96 per cent pincode presence across India. Close to 45 per cent of southern viewers watch JioHotstar on connected televisions, making it one of the country’s earliest and fastest-growing connected television-first markets.
Sreeram highlighted JioHotstar’s 400 million strong user base and its position as the country’s only streaming destination with more than 300,000 hours of entertainment. The platform now serves audiences across 100 per cent of India’s pincodes and has built the country’s largest connected television universe with more than 85 million devices.
Kutty emphasised that the south doesn’t follow trends, it creates them. From pan-India blockbusters to pioneering new formats, southern stories today reverberate across the country. Southern consumers are digital first, highly discerning and increasingly exploratory. They are widening the genres they engage with and pushing creators to tell bolder, more diverse and culturally rooted stories.
The numbers bear this out. Over 80 per cent of Malayalam watch time is driven by viewers outside Kerala. Heartbeat emerged as the biggest show ever with over 100 million hours of watch time this year. Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra and Mirai became the platform’s most-watched films this year, whilst movies like Thudarum and Tourist Family also notched record-breaking viewership.
Bigg Boss viewership from the south alone commands a scale larger than the entire viewership of the next closest streaming platform. Southern consumers spend nearly 70 per cent more time on JioHotstar compared to the rest of India, demonstrating exceptional stickiness and loyalty. Their curiosity, selectivity and appetite for diverse storytelling make them not just viewers but trendsetters shaping the platform’s creative direction.
In the last ten months, JioHotstar has collaborated with over 500 writers, directors and showrunners, with almost 75 per cent of this year’s southern originals choosing the platform as their home. The platform is also engaging with the Government of Tamil Nadu to strengthen the creative ecosystem, from supporting creative labs to enabling internships and participating in state-driven programmes.
Asked how the platform would avoid a one-size-fits-all approach given southern audiences’ diverse linguistic tastes, Kutty explained that technology drives personalisation. “What we’re trying to do is really design content meant for different cohorts of audiences,” he said. The platform’s algorithms predict and surface content based on viewing behaviour. “A story like Lokah possibly would have only been accessible to consumers in Kerala, maybe it would have gone to Tamil Nadu, but because there are signals which our platform has got, we are able to surface the content to a consumer in Meerut who potentially could be interested in it”. Southern audiences, Kutty added, are also receptive to advertising on the platform.
With sustained investments, strategic partnerships and a commitment to empowering creators, JioHotstar reckons it is capturing the pulse of southern audiences. Whether Rs 4,000 crore proves sufficient to cement that dominance, or merely whets appetites for more, will become clear as those 1,500 hours begin streaming. For now, the south’s creative surge has found its deepest-pocketed champion.
iWorld
Epic Company launches unified Epic Studio for films and OTT
Vivek Krishnani to head films business; Samar Khan leads OTT & Television.
MUMBAI: Epic just merged its creative superheroes under one cape because when films and OTT need to fight for attention together, you don’t keep them in separate universes. The Epic Company has launched Epic Studio, a next-generation creative and production powerhouse that unites Juggernaut Productions and Movieverse Studio under a single banner. The move creates a streamlined, scalable platform for premium storytelling across theatrical films, OTT originals, television, digital-first formats and branded content.
Vivek Krishnani has been appointed chief executive officer, Epic Studio (Films), overseeing the theatrical and film business with a focus on culturally resonant narratives across Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati and Malayalam cinema. Samar Khan continues as chief executive officer, Epic Studio (OTT & Television) and retains his role as chief content officer for Docubay and Epic On.
The Epic Company managing director Aditya Pittie said, “Epic Studio brings together our entire creative ecosystem under one unified studio vision. This is not just an integration of verticals, but the creation of a collaborative environment where writers, filmmakers, creators, and brand partners can seamlessly develop and scale stories across formats and screens.”
Vivek Krishnani added, “We are building an audience-focused mainstream film studio committed to delivering fresh, engaging, and innovative stories for both theatrical and streaming platforms.”
Samar Khan commented, “This alignment allows us to approach storytelling with a unified studio mindset. We are building IP under one creative umbrella, with scale and longevity in mind from inception.”
The unified structure eliminates silos, enabling ideas to flow fluidly from concept to screen while adapting to evolving audience behaviour. Epic Studio positions itself as a creator-led ecosystem championing purposeful, resonant storytelling with commercial strength.
In an entertainment landscape where stories now leap between screens faster than plot twists, Epic isn’t just building a studio, it’s crafting a single launchpad where every tale gets the best shot at soaring across every platform.
