JioStar, Reliance Industries’ media arm, reported a record-breaking first quarter of FY26, primarily driven by the massive success of IPL 2025 (JioHotstar). Kevin Vaz, CEO of Entertainment Business at JioStar, highlighted that the IPL attracted over 652 million digital viewers and 537 million TV viewers, with its finale setting a new record for T20 viewership.
Beyond cricket, JioStar is focused on sustaining momentum with a robust entertainment content pipeline, including popular shows like Bigg Boss (in multiple languages), Special Ops 2, film premieres like Jolly LLB 3, and more.
A significant upcoming bet is the reboot of the popular show Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Moreover, regional content on JioHotstar in languages such as Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam has performed well in recent months.
The company also witnessed strong growth in connected TV (CTV) consumption and a significant increase in its paid digital subscriber base, reaching 287 million in India alone. Vaz credited this success to their hybrid AVOD-SVOD (ad-supported and subscription video-on-demand) model, which offers initial free content access to build loyalty before prompting subscriptions.
JioStar remains confident in its long-term strategy, emphasizing scale, innovation, and content diversity.
But, but, but… Yes, there’s always a but.
Beneath this gleaming shine of success and impressive statistics lies a critical question: How long can JioStar sustain this momentum amid a growing wave of user complaints about technical and functional issues? And the main reason for this rising frustration? JioHotstar.
While JioHotstar’s (JioStar) executives can beam all they want about impressive viewership stats and growing subscriber numbers, they’ve horribly failed at addressing the swelling frustration of their user base.
For instance, many users, even those on premium plans, have lamented inconsistent and often low-bitrate video quality, with 1080p content frequently appearing blurry or pixelated. This significantly disrupts the immersive viewing experience.
Frequent buffering and technical glitches reigned supreme throughout IPL 2025.
Another major point of contention is the sheer volume and length of advertisements, even for paid subscribers. The ad-supported model applied to even the “Super” plans has led to widespread disillusionment, with some users reporting ads on downloaded content and sneaky ad placements that kill immersion.
Moreover, compared to its top competitors, JioHotstar’s interface often feels clunky, outdated, and unintuitive. Users have reported issues with search functionality, irrelevant content recommendations, and more. Most of these complaints have gone unanswered. On top of that, frequent app crashes, freezing, and generic error messages have become all too common.
There’s no denying that JioStar’s aggressive content acquisition and strategic market penetration have helped it grow rapidly in the Indian OTT space.
However, the true test of sustainability lies in its ability to fix the above-mentioned user complaints. A compelling content library and smart monetization might attract users, but only a seamless, high-quality, and reliable technical experience will retain them.
Let’s see how JioStar manages this situation in the coming months. Stay tuned for more updates.