iWorld
Facebook plans to stream sports, comedy, reality & gaming TV series
MUMBAI: Cable cutters never had it this good. Now, a broad range of streaming services is available on all your devices, including those that offer live TV.
Social networking giant Facebook, with around two billion monthly users, plans to start production on high-quality gaming shows and television series possibly investing up to $3 million (Rs 193 million) an 30-minute episode which would be broadcast on its platform. Facebook may announce its first batch of TV-like shows this summer, targeting 13-34 age-group audience but focusing on 17-30 range, PTI and WSJ reported. With that, Facebook is set to take on Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu.
The online platform, which has around two billion monthly users worldwide, is working on the project with a small group of partners and hopes to start putting out episodes of its forthcoming series by the end of the summer. The company is also reportedly keen on sit-com programming having signed deals for short-form content from partners such as Vox Media, ATTN, and BuzzFeed earlier this month.
It was in mid-April that Facebook originally planned to unveil its shows around its developer conference, then in time for the Cannes Lions festival, which started mid-June. But, it did not happen.
Facebook vice president for media partnerships Nick Grudin, in a statement to AFP, said its goal was to make Facebook a place where people could come together around video, observing that Facebook and its collaborators would “experiment with the kinds of shows you can build a community around — from sports to comedy to reality to gaming.”
Facebook is funding the shows on its own at first, he said, “but, over time, we want to help lots of creators make videos funded through revenue sharing products like Ad Break,” a software tool that allows adverts to be directly inserted into Facebook’s online content.
Facebook could possibly not have shows about teens, or “political dramas, news [or] shows with nudity and rough language.” So, it seems Facebook wants to be the safest, most straight-down-the-middle TV network on the web. Facebook may share ad revenue with creatives who contribute short-form content. And, in a major change from the way online competitors have been doing business, it will also open up its viewership data to “Hollywood” — presumably production partners.
iWorld
JioStar revenue hits Rs 9,784 crore as cricket fuels 22 per cent growth
A surge in digital viewership and sports dominance fuels a blockbuster quarter for the media giant
MUMBAI: JioStar is batting on a flat pitch. The media titan’s fourth-quarter results for the financial year 2026 reveal a business scaling new heights, propelled by an unprecedented appetite for premium sports and digital-first storytelling.
Gross revenue for the quarter soared by 22.15 per cent to Rs 9,784 crore, up from Rs 8,010 crore in the third quarter. Operationally, the momentum was equally strong; revenue from operations climbed 21 per cent to Rs 8,372 crore. These figures underscore the firm’s successful integration following the Reliance and Disney merger, creating a dominant force in the Indian market.
The annual performance has been nothing short of a spectacle. Full-year gross revenue reached a massive Rs 36,248 crore, while annual profit after tax hit Rs 3,210 crore. This rapid expansion reflects JioStar’s ability to capture and monetise the massive growth in India’s media consumption.
Cricket proved to be the ultimate growth engine. The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 and TATA IPL 2026 delivered “record-breaking viewership” across both television and digital screens. The World Cup final alone drew a global peak concurrency of 72.5 million on JioHotstar, cementing its status as the nation’s premier streaming destination. On television, JioStar maintained a commanding 34.2 per cent viewership share, reaching a staggering 810 million viewers nationwide.
The digital numbers were just as impressive. JioHotstar averaged 500 million monthly active users, driven by consistent subscriber growth and innovative AI-led content discovery tools. These advancements are ensuring that JioStar remains at the cutting edge of the global “Race for Attention.”
With a firm grip on the country’s most valuable sporting rights and a rapidly growing digital footprint, JioStar is perfectly positioned for the future. It has built the ultimate content powerhouse—one that is ready to dominate the Indian living room for years to come.
