iWorld
Zee5 looks to drive up subscription with Sunny Leone biopic
MUMBAI: Sunny Leone is back. But this time it’s not her dance moves that will sway you but rather her biopic. Zee5, the over the top (OTT) platform by the zee group, is launching Karenjit Kaur-the untold story of Sunny Leone.
Commenting on the offbeat theme of the biopic Zee5 India CEO Tarun Katial said, “What’s the point of repeating what has been done before?”
The platform has been bullish about original content right from day one. After launching original shows of diverse genres including ZERO Kms, The Story, Babbar ka Tabbar, this platform is set to drive up subscription by adding a biopic. While the biopic is in episodic format, Sunny Leone played her own character.
Zee5 launches 20 originals to drive up subscription
In addition to that, the series will be available in four regional languages including Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi which can help it garner fans outside metro cities. Other than focusing on digital marketing, there will be heavy promotion on ZEEL’s network as well as outdoor.
Katial said that all the platforms shows are getting the required traction. “In digital, we want to build some robustness in the user data before we take decisions of preferring one genre over the other. We don’t want to get bracketed and clustered just yet,” he said.
Katial believes that there ample opportunities in getting subscription revenue. “There’s definite room for big subscription revenue. I think you should give more credit to Indians. They didn’t want to shop online but e-commerce is such a major business now,” he commented on the future of the SVOD model.
In the six months of Zee5, the earlier users of OZEE and Ditto TV have been integrated successfully and the platform has already rolled out a global launch. The plan is to market to different geographies on user-based segments, language-based segments and tastes and preferences. Rather than going with a very generalised marketing strategy, the platform is opting for user-based marketing strategy.
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.
