Star India has agreed to share the feed of cricket matches involving India with Reliance Jio’s live TV app JioTV.
Till now, JioTV users had to install Star’s Hotstar app to watch any of the network’s sports channels.
The sharing agreement is valid for five years, said Reliance Jio, without divulging the financial details behind the deal.
The agreement will cover T20 matches, one-day internationals (ODI), international test matches and premier domestic competitions of the BCCI.
“With this partnership, we intend to address both these objectives of providing the best sporting content with the best digital infrastructure to the Jio users. Jio promises to and will continue to bring a superlative customer experience in the areas of sports, AR, VR, Immersive viewing and more in the coming days,” said Akash Ambani, Director, Jio.
Within just two years of launching, Reliance Jio has become by far the biggest telecom operator in India by traffic.
The company is estimated to carry over half of the mobile data traffic generated in the country. JioTV is by far the most popular TV streaming app in India.
Star had been one of JioTV’s earliest content suppliers, but had kept its sports channels off the platform. Instead, it used to the exposure to drive installations of its own content app Hotstar.
Meanwhile, the mobile phone has become almost as popular as TV for consuming long-format content in India due to the cheap availability of 4G broadband services.
Compared to about Rs 220 per GB two years ago, 4G data prices in India are currently ruling at around Rs 10 per GB, spurring consumption.
Star India MD Sanjay Gupta said the idea was to reinvent the cricket experience in India.
“And, with a new partner in Reliance Jio, we will have even more opportunities to raise the bar for cricket fans.”