JOverview
JioStar is a major player in the media and entertainment space. It curates and distributes a large lineup of content across 120 TV channels and two streaming platforms, serving both individual viewers and advertisers. Revenue comes from subscriptions and advertising, with content delivered via live channels and on-demand streaming on its platforms. Users access shows and channels by subscribing or engaging with ad-supported content, while the platforms continuously update offerings to keep audiences engaged. The company differs from competitors through its scale and backing from Viacom18 and Disney Star, a leadership team of industry veterans, and a broad, multi-platform content library that reaches diverse audiences. The goal is to maintain a leading position as a media conglomerate by delivering premium entertainment to a wide audience through subscriptions and advertising partnerships.
Work here?Claim your company
About JioStar
Industries
Company Size
1,001-5,000
Company Stage
Growth Equity (Non-Venture Capital)
Total Funding
$45.8M
Headquarters
Mumbai, India
Founded
1990
Get referred to JioStar
See people who can refer or advise you
Simplify's take
What believers are saying
- Q2 FY27 revenue rose 10.1% to ₹6,806 crore on subscriptions and digital ads.
- JioHotstar averaged 440 million MAUs, and overseas subscribers grew 30% after September.
- Bigg Boss Bangla and sports rights like Abu Dhabi T10 deepen engagement and monetization.
What critics are saying
- Zee's September 2026 contempt bid over music copyrights threatens injunction damage and legal costs.
- TRAI tariff fights still drag on in Delhi High Court, risking pricing flexibility.
- If content-rights disputes worsen, JioStar faces catalogue removals and partner distrust.
What makes JioStar unique
- JioStar reaches 500 million MAUs and 72.5 million concurrent sports viewers.
- JioHotstar spans 300,000 hours across 19 languages, plus TV and streaming distribution.
- September 2026 launches in UK, Canada, Singapore, and MENA extend diaspora reach.
Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?
Funding
Total Funding
$45.8M
Above
Industry Average
Funded Over
2 Rounds
Benefits
- Remote Work Options
- Flexible Work Hours
- Performance Bonus
- Health Insurance
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
0%1 year growth
0%2 year growth
0%JioStar's chief architect on AI discovery at 500M-user scale. Company size: Enterprise Region: Asia-Pacific & Oceania Industry: Media, Entertainment & Sport Products: API, Codex Loading... Its Executive Function series features perspectives from leaders driving transformation through AI. JioStar operates entertainment and live-sports platforms used by more than 500 million consumers and has supported as many as 72.5 million concurrent live-sports viewers. At that scale, AI has to be fast, reliable, and ready for production. Using the OpenAI API, JioStar built a conversational video and cricket-stat discovery assistant into JioHotstar. Viewers can speak naturally to find movies and shows, historical highlights, live-match moments, or cricket statistics, with results returned through a visual, conversational experience. At OpenAI's Executive Summit in Singapore, Sidharth Sharma, OpenAI's Head of Go-to-Market for ASEAN, spoke with Vijay Seshadri - Chief Architect, JioStar, about building the experience for more than 15 languages in about eight weeks, and the lessons for leaders taking AI from demo to production. What convinced you that AI would fundamentally change how people discover content? Content discovery has evolved very little in the past 25 years. Recommendations were the last major shift. Much of what followed has been an iteration of the same idea. But choosing what to watch is deeply personal. A person might say, "I'm feeling sad. Show me something that will cheer me up." Even that simple request contains a lot of nuance. What kind of sad? What usually cheers that person up? Do they want comedy, comfort viewing or something completely distracting? A traditional recommendation system may struggle to understand that moment. Conversation gives the viewer a way to explain it. Aetos call this a voice-visual interface. How did you turn that idea into a product in time for a major cricket tournament? Aetos began working through the concept in October and November, with a major cricket tournament coming in February. Aetos had roughly two months and two very different audiences: entertainment viewers and cricket fans. An entertainment viewer might say, "It's Friday evening - surprise me," or describe a movie without knowing its title. Sports viewers may want a more specific update, like fall of wickets, a series of sixes, or the match in which a player scored a certain number of runs. Cricket experts may want statistics about every ball. These are very different discovery problems. Aetos worked on bringing entertainment, sports moments and detailed cricket statistics into one experience, across multiple languages, in a very short period. At JioStar's scale, what tradeoffs shaped the technical design? Very early, Aetos framed the problem as a three-way tradeoff among accuracy, latency, and cost. Every engineering decision had to balance all three at once. Voice made that especially important. More than 60% of its users use voice rather than text: people prefer to say what they want to watch. The response still has to be relevant, fast, and economically viable at scale. What does an effective evaluation system look like in production? I think about it in two parts: an evaluation framework and a validation layer. Before production, the evaluation framework should prompt changes. In production, a feedback loop should turn customer behavior and failures into new eval cases. That flywheel can become self-amplified, but it is extremely difficult to get right. Domain experts are essential. For sports-statistics evals, Aetos worked with people such as sports-magazine editors who understood what serious fans might ask. You cannot begin with a prompt alone; you need to seed the system with deep human expertise. How did a small team build and launch the experience in about eight weeks? One thing Aetos got right was the team. Aetos started with a small team of data scientists and engineers around a clear problem statement. OpenAI's forward-deployed engineers worked alongside Aetos to further identify the few things Aetos absolutely had to get right. The first was scope. A voice or text interface lets users ask almost anything, so Aetos began by deciding what the system should not answer. Guardrails came first. For evals, Aetos began with a seed dataset and used models to expand it with more variation. Aetos created what you might now call a maker-checker pattern: one model helped determine how to answer a question, while another acted as a validator - an LLM as judge - with a competing objective. That raised another question: who tests the judge? Designing the validator was itself an evaluation problem. Codex helped the team accelerate work such as generating eval cases and updating the system, but faster building did not remove the need for judgment and validation. Looking back, what would you do differently? I would invest earlier in production monitoring for model efficacy. Traditional infrastructure measures such as P99 latency remain important, but they are not enough. You also need to monitor model efficacy in production. What should executives keep in mind as they move from AI experiments to production systems? First, there is a large gap between what technology can do and the reality inside an enterprise. If your company has not matched every frontier-model announcement, you are not alone. Second, keep focusing on outcomes rather than activity. It is easy to mistake visible motion for meaningful progress, particularly when companies emphasize input metrics. Lines of code generated, for example, do not tell you whether you created meaningful value. Finally, most enterprises underestimate the human skill and agency required. This cannot be only a generic skilling program. Leaders need people who can apply these tools with judgment. Give a strong engineer a tool like Codex and the impact can multiply; without the judgment to validate production systems, the risk multiplies too. Join the new era of work. More than 1 million businesses around the world are achieving meaningful results with OpenAI.
JioStar's Saptarshi Mandal joins Paytm as General Manager-West. JioStar's Saptarshi Mandal joins Paytm as General Manager-WesSaptarshi Mandal has moved on from JioStar and joined Paytm as General Manager-West. The news has been shared by Mandal in a LinkedIn update. "After an incredible stint at Jiostar Sports, I'm excited to begin a new chapter with Paytm Ads!!! I'm delighted to take on the role of GM-West, where I'll drive business and innovative engagement solutions in an increasingly dynamic media ecosystem. The time at Jiostar Sports has been a journey of immense learning, meaningful relationships, and unforgettable experiences. I move forward carrying the learnings, friendships, and memories with deep gratitude," he wrote in the post. At JioStar, Mandal was associate director- ad sales digital & LTV- JioStar Sports. He was with JioStar for a year. Before that, he was associated with Viacom18.
JioStar, the Indian media group backed by Reliance Industries, grew revenue from operations 10.1% year on year to INR68.1 billion ($710 million) in the July–September quarter, despite a weak advertising market. Profit after tax fell 13.2% to INR11.5 billion ($120 million). Reliance credited subscriptions and digital entertainment advertising. Gross revenue rose 9.8% to INR79.4 billion ($829 million). Margins fell. EBITDA from operations dropped 10.5% to INR13.7 billion ($143 million), and the margin slid to 22.1% from 28.1%. Streaming service JioHotstar averaged about 440 million monthly active users, up 10%. Its first "Bigg Boss Bangla," hosted by Sourav Ganguly, helped the franchise draw more than 90 million viewers across six languages in three weeks.
JioStar reports 10% revenue growth in Q2; JioHotstar reaches 440 million monthly users. Despite a weak advertising environment, the media and entertainment business reported double-digit growth in operating revenue, supported by subscriptions and digital advertising. JioStar, the media and entertainment business of Reliance Industries, reported a 10.1% year-on-year increase in revenue from operations to ₹6,806 crore for the September quarter, supported by subscription income and digital advertising even as the company navigated a weak advertising environment. The company reported revenue from operations of ₹6,179 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Gross revenue for the quarter stood at ₹7,944 crore, compared with ₹7,232 crore a year earlier, marking growth of 9.8%. Profitability, however, remained under pressure. EBITDA from operations declined 10.5% year-on-year to ₹1,372 crore, against ₹1,533 crore in the year-ago quarter. Total EBITDA fell 13.6% to ₹1,502 crore, while profit after tax declined 13.2% to ₹1,147 crore from ₹1,322 crore. The results point to a divergence between JioStar's revenue growth and earnings performance, with subscription and digital advertising revenues supporting the top line but not fully offsetting the pressure on profitability. JioHotstar's reach expands Digital entertainment remained a key growth driver for JioStar during the quarter. JioHotstar averaged around 440 million monthly active users (MAUs), registering 10% year-on-year growth. The platform also recorded more than 15% growth in entertainment watch time, driven by consumption across Hindi and regional markets. JioStar said revenue from operations grew despite the weak advertising environment, with strong subscription revenue and digital entertainment advertising contributing to the performance. The company did not disclose a separate revenue breakdown for subscriptions and advertising. The platform's international expansion also gained traction. JioHotstar was relaunched under its brand in Singapore, the UK and Canada in September, with active subscriber volumes across these markets increasing by around 30% since the launch. The company is also seeking to deepen engagement across connected television (CTV). It said it had achieved near-complete reach across the CTV universe, with the average JioHotstar CTV viewer consuming three times as much content as a mobile viewer. In another initiative to widen access, mobile-plan users were offered CTV access for up to two hours a month. Its 'Pay Kisi Aur Se' subscription payment solution generated 10% incremental payment initiations, according to the company. Content strategy targets regional and mass audiences JioStar continued to build its entertainment portfolio around Hindi and regional programming, with a mix of established franchises, new formats and longer-running series. Shows such as India Ke Top 1%, Khatron Ke Khiladi, Hustle Season 5 and Bhojpuri Bawaal featured in the quarter's programming slate. The Bigg Boss franchise, spanning six languages, collectively reached more than 90 million viewers on JioHotstar during its first three weeks. The company also launched Bigg Boss Bangla for the first three weeks. The company also launched Bigg Boss Bangla for the first time, with Sourav Ganguly as host. Long-running programming continued to be an important part of the platform's content strategy. Resort became the most-watched show in JioHotstar's history, while Heart Beat S3 and Court recorded strong early performance. Thukra Ke Mera Pyaar S2 also registered an increase in viewership compared with its previous season. The platform added another title to its original programming portfolio with Pritam & Pedro, directed by Rajkumar Hirani, which the company described as the most successful short-running series in JioHotstar's history. JioStar's Tadka initiative added close to 100 shows across sports, reality and other genres, further expanding the platform's content offering. Sports portfolio remains a key engagement driver. Sports continued to be a major component of JioStar's digital strategy, with the quarter featuring the England-India cricket series, Wimbledon 2026, the US Open 2026 and the opening stages of the Premier League 2026/27 season. The England-India series became the biggest bilateral overseas series ever on JioHotstar in terms of digital viewership, according to the company. Wimbledon, the US Open and the early Premier League season delivered stable viewership, alongside stronger monetisation. JioStar also expanded commerce integrations beyond cricket to include Wimbledon, the US Open and the Premier League. The expansion of commerce integrations across sporting properties indicates the company's efforts to build additional monetisation opportunities around live sports audiences, beyond advertising and subscriptions. Revenue growth outpaces earnings growth. For the first half of FY27, JioStar reported revenue from operations of ₹17,752 crore, up from ₹15,780 crore in the corresponding period last year. EBITDA from operations increased to ₹2,305 crore from ₹2,247 crore. However, total EBITDA for the first half declined to ₹2,551 crore from ₹2,755 crore, while profit after tax stood at ₹1,812 crore, compared with ₹1,903 crore in the year-ago period. The September-quarter performance highlights JioStar's growing digital scale, with JioHotstar's large monthly audience, expanding international footprint and broad entertainment and sports portfolio supporting revenue growth. The key financial question remains how effectively the company can translate that expanding reach and engagement into sustained profitability. While subscription growth and digital advertising supported operating revenue in the quarter, the decline in EBITDA and net profit underscores the pressure on earnings.
Pankti Sidhpura joins JioStar as Research Manager, Sports. Prior to this, Sidhpura was associated with The Third Eye Integrated Services. Pankti Sidhpura has joined JioStar as Research Manager, Sports. She recently announced the move on LinkedIn, although her profile indicates that she took up the role in September 2026. Prior to joining JioStar, Sidhpura was associated with The Third Eye Integrated Services for three years, most recently serving as Research Manager. She has also held roles at Kantar, MarketVistas Consumer Insights, Ipsos and Pioneer Publicity Corporation.
JioStar is Hiring for 227 Jobs on Simplify!
Find jobs on Simplify and start your career today
Don't see your dream role? Check out thousands of other roles on Simplify.Browse all jobs
About JioStar
Industries
Company Size
1,001-5,000
Company Stage
Growth Equity (Non-Venture Capital)
Total Funding
$45.8M
Headquarters
Mumbai, India
Founded
1990
JioStar is Hiring for 227 Jobs on Simplify!
Find jobs on Simplify and start your career today
Don't see your dream role? Check out thousands of other roles on Simplify.Browse all jobs