You will be able to stream the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches for free on Reliance Jio’s streaming platform— JioCinema, according to a report in Bloomberg. The report added that the company is expecting more than 550 million people to watch the matches which will start from March 31, 2023. It is not clear if Reliance will stream matches for free in all the five years as there is no official announcement but it must be noted that the company had streamed the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar for free on JioCinema. The rights to stream IPL were bagged by Viacom18 for five years in 2022 Viacom18 is a joint venture between Reliance’s Network18 and US conglomerate Paramount Global, which runs 38 channels including Colors TV and OTT platform, VOOT, in India. Why it matters: It is a significant step given that the IPL is one of the most popular entertainment properties in India. The company had paid billions (three times more than Star in 2016) to acquire rights so it may be surprising to see the company not using these rights to boost its subscriber count as Disney did with Hotstar. What is Reliance getting out of it: The excitement around IPL is always at a fever pitch in a cricket-crazy nation like India so it is likely that Reliance will use its audience to augment advertising sales. It is not the first time that IPL will be streamed for free as YouTube had done the same in 2010.…
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