iWorld
JioHotstar bets Rs 4,000 crore on the south’s storytelling surge
CHENNAI: JioHotstar is staking Rs 4,000 crore on a wager that southern India’s creative revolution will define the country’s entertainment future. The streaming platform, barely ten months into its existence, unveiled plans on 9th December to pump that sum into building what it calls the country’s most powerful south-focused content and creator ecosystem. Over the next 12 months, 1,500 hours of fresh southern programming will roll out.
The Head of the Subscription Video-on-Demand Business and Chief Marketing Officer at JioStar, Sushant Sreeram, along with the Head of the Entertainment Business, South Cluster at JioStar, Krishnan Kutty, led the announcement. The scale of investment signals not just growth but a long-term conviction that southern narratives will fuel India’s next entertainment surge.
The platform’s rationale is straightforward: southern India has rapidly emerged as one of JioHotstar’s strongest growth engines, outperforming the rest of the country in subscription depth, retention and connected television adoption. Southern entertainment on the platform has achieved 99.96 per cent pincode presence across India. Close to 45 per cent of southern viewers watch JioHotstar on connected televisions, making it one of the country’s earliest and fastest-growing connected television-first markets.
Sreeram highlighted JioHotstar’s 400 million strong user base and its position as the country’s only streaming destination with more than 300,000 hours of entertainment. The platform now serves audiences across 100 per cent of India’s pincodes and has built the country’s largest connected television universe with more than 85 million devices.
Kutty emphasised that the south doesn’t follow trends, it creates them. From pan-India blockbusters to pioneering new formats, southern stories today reverberate across the country. Southern consumers are digital first, highly discerning and increasingly exploratory. They are widening the genres they engage with and pushing creators to tell bolder, more diverse and culturally rooted stories.
The numbers bear this out. Over 80 per cent of Malayalam watch time is driven by viewers outside Kerala. Heartbeat emerged as the biggest show ever with over 100 million hours of watch time this year. Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra and Mirai became the platform’s most-watched films this year, whilst movies like Thudarum and Tourist Family also notched record-breaking viewership.
Bigg Boss viewership from the south alone commands a scale larger than the entire viewership of the next closest streaming platform. Southern consumers spend nearly 70 per cent more time on JioHotstar compared to the rest of India, demonstrating exceptional stickiness and loyalty. Their curiosity, selectivity and appetite for diverse storytelling make them not just viewers but trendsetters shaping the platform’s creative direction.
In the last ten months, JioHotstar has collaborated with over 500 writers, directors and showrunners, with almost 75 per cent of this year’s southern originals choosing the platform as their home. The platform is also engaging with the Government of Tamil Nadu to strengthen the creative ecosystem, from supporting creative labs to enabling internships and participating in state-driven programmes.
Asked how the platform would avoid a one-size-fits-all approach given southern audiences’ diverse linguistic tastes, Kutty explained that technology drives personalisation. “What we’re trying to do is really design content meant for different cohorts of audiences,” he said. The platform’s algorithms predict and surface content based on viewing behaviour. “A story like Lokah possibly would have only been accessible to consumers in Kerala, maybe it would have gone to Tamil Nadu, but because there are signals which our platform has got, we are able to surface the content to a consumer in Meerut who potentially could be interested in it”. Southern audiences, Kutty added, are also receptive to advertising on the platform.
With sustained investments, strategic partnerships and a commitment to empowering creators, JioHotstar reckons it is capturing the pulse of southern audiences. Whether Rs 4,000 crore proves sufficient to cement that dominance, or merely whets appetites for more, will become clear as those 1,500 hours begin streaming. For now, the south’s creative surge has found its deepest-pocketed champion.
iWorld
Netflix celebrates a decade in India with Shah Rukh Khan-narrated tribute film
MUMBAI: Netflix is celebrating ten years in India with a slick anniversary film voiced by Shah Rukh Khan, a nostalgic sprint through a decade that rewired how the country watches stories. The campaign doubles as both tribute and reminder: streaming did not just enter Indian homes, it quietly rearranged them.
Roll back to 2016 and television still dictated schedules. Viewers waited weeks, sometimes months, for favourite films to appear on prime time. Family-friendly filters narrowed options further, and piracy often filled the gaps. Then Netflix arrived, softly but decisively, carrying a catalogue of international titles rarely seen in Indian theatres and placing them a click away. Old blockbusters and new releases suddenly coexisted on the same digital shelf.
The platform’s real inflection point came in 2018 with Sacred Games, a breakout series that refused to dilute India’s grit for global comfort. Audiences embraced its unvarnished tone, signalling readiness for stories that did not need box-office validation or censorship compromises. What followed was a steady procession of relatable narratives. Competitive-exam anxiety fuelled Kota Factory. College relationships unfolded in Mismatched. Everyday pressures, not grand spectacle, proved bankable.
Language barriers thinned as foreign series arrived with Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubbing, expanding viewership beyond urban English-speaking pockets. Marketing mirrored the shift. For global releases such as Squid Game, Netflix leaned on regional creators and influencers to localise buzz and make international content feel native.
The library widened beyond fiction. Documentaries stepped out of festival circuits into living rooms. Stand-up comedians found scale. Established filmmakers, including Sanjay Leela Bhansali with Heeramandi, embraced the platform’s long-form canvas. Subscriber numbers swelled to 12.37 million in India, according to Demandsage, and behaviour followed suit. Late-night binges became routine. Friday release rituals loosened. Watch parties turned solitary screens into social events.
Economics demanded adjustment. Early subscription pricing carried a premium aura that deterred many households. Over time, Netflix recalibrated plans to align with Indian spending sensibilities, conceding that accessibility is as critical as content. To extend momentum around marquee titles, the platform also experimented with split-season releases, stretching anticipation and watch time.
The anniversary film, narrated by Shah Rukh Khan, captures the linguistic shift that mirrors the cultural one: from “Netflix pe kya dekha?” to “Netflix pe kya dekhein?” The question moved from recounting the past to planning the next binge. In ten years, Netflix morphed from foreign entrant to familiar fixture, exporting Indian stories abroad while importing global ones home. The remote no longer waits; it chooses, clicks and moves on. In the streaming age, patience is out, playlists are in, and the next episode is always one tap away.
e-commerce
Tulasi Mohan Padavala elevated to Associate Director at Blinkit
Gurugram: Blinkit has elevated Tulasi Mohan Padavala to associate director, capping a three-year climb inside the quick-commerce firm and signalling confidence in an executive steeped in ecommerce, category management and on-ground sales execution.
Padavala shared the update publicly, saying he was “happy to share” the promotion, a succinct announcement that nevertheless marks a notable step up within one of India’s fastest-moving delivery platforms. The new role follows nearly three years at Blinkit, where he most recently served as senior category manager from February 2023 to January 2026, focusing on strategic sourcing and assortment planning.
The promotion places Padavala in Blinkit’s mid-to-senior leadership tier at a time when the company continues to expand its rapid-delivery footprint and sharpen category economics. His brief tenure as associate director began in January 2026, with responsibilities expected to span category growth, supplier strategy and cross-functional execution.
Before Blinkit, Padavala spent a short but intensive stint as global ecommerce manager at Wholsum Foods, the parent of Slurrp Farm and Millé, between November 2022 and February 2023. There he worked on digital marketplace expansion and online retail operations, adding a direct-to-consumer and international ecommerce layer to his résumé.
A longer stretch at Amazon shaped much of his cross-border commerce experience. As business development manager for Amazon’s India Global Selling programme from February 2021 to October 2022, Padavala helped Indian D2C brands enter the North American market. His remit ranged from seller recruitment and category revenue management to coordination with industry bodies, regulators and logistics partners. Key outcomes included launching more than 50 D2C consumable brands in the United States, driving a cumulative gross merchandise sales figure of $1m in FY21-22, tripling sales for participating brands during Prime Day through marketing and visibility levers, growing the monthly recurring revenue of more than 10 newly launched sellers from zero to an average $20,000 each, and negotiating ecommerce partnerships that reduced initial launch costs by 20 per cent.
Padavala’s earlier career was forged in the field rather than the dashboard. At Coffee Day Group, he spent close to five years across multiple sales leadership roles. As sales manager in the Greater Delhi Area from July 2019 to January 2021, he led vending-machine and consumables sales for small and medium enterprises with a team of more than 15 assistant and territory sales managers, managed over 2,000 clients, drove upselling and cross-selling, maintained channel partnerships and ensured timely collections. Prior to that, he served as area sales manager in Delhi between May 2018 and June 2019, handling south and east Delhi markets, and earlier in Hyderabad from April 2016 to May 2018, where he led Andhra Pradesh sales for the vending division, supervised service and logistics functions and managed a base of more than 600 machines with a four-member team.
His professional arc began with internships that combined analytics and process improvement. At Boehringer Ingelheim in 2015, Padavala analysed the impact of brand extension on the drug Pradaxa, identified key performance indicators through market research and assessed sales forecasts, recommendations that drew positive responses in pilot studies. Earlier, at Genpact in 2014, he automated manual sales-order backlog reporting using VBA and Excel, increasing efficiency by 800 per cent, and worked on benchmarking metrics within supply-chain planning processes.
From automating spreadsheets to scaling cross-border ecommerce and now steering quick-commerce categories, Padavala’s trajectory tracks the evolution of India’s retail economy itself. Blinkit’s bet is clear: blend data, discipline and delivery speed. The promotion formalises what his career already suggests. In the race for instant commerce, experience that moves from warehouse floors to global dashboards is no longer optional. It is the engine.
e-commerce
Bharatpe plays a super over as Rohit Sharma fronts T20 push
MUMBAI: When the stakes rise and seconds matter, even payments need a match-winning finish. That’s the cue for Bharatpe, which has rolled out Super Over, a nationwide campaign led by Indian cricket captain Rohit Sharma, timed neatly ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.
The campaign draws a straight line between the pulse of cricket and the pace of everyday digital payments. A new brand film taps into India’s emotional bond with the game, while positioning UPI as the quiet hero that keeps daily transactions ticking along at match speed.
As part of Super Over, users making payments via Bharatpe UPI can bag daily rewards ranging from match tickets and signed merchandise to a chance to watch a T20 World Cup fixture alongside Rohit Sharma himself. Both consumers and merchants are also assured Zillion Coins on every eligible transaction, adding a little extra sparkle to routine payments.
Behind the scenes, Bharatpe is also batting for safety. The platform is backed by Bharatpe Shield, a fraud-protection layer designed to offer enhanced security, comprehensive coverage and dedicated support aimed at helping users transact with greater confidence as digital payments scale up.
Announcing the campaign, Bharatpe head of marketing Shilpi Kapoor said Super Over mirrors the aspirations of everyday Indians, combining speed, security and instant rewards to make UPI transactions feel both reliable and rewarding.
The campaign will play out across digital platforms, social media and on-ground activations nationwide, staying live through the T20 World Cup season proof that in cricket, as in payments, timing is everything.
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