JioStar revenue rises 14% to ₹10,946 crore in Q1 FY27

Reliance Industries’ media and entertainment business JioStar reported a 14% year-on-year increase in revenue from operations to Rs 10,946 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2026.

EBITDA from operations rose at more than twice the pace of revenue, increasing 30.7% to Rs 933 crore from Rs 714 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

Profit after tax increased 14.5% to Rs 665 crore, compared with Rs 581 crore in the year-ago period.

Gross revenue, which includes investment income and other components, rose 14.1% to Rs 12,799 crore from Rs 11,222 crore.

The revenue growth was led by higher subscription income and digital entertainment advertising revenue, according to Reliance’s quarterly media release.

Core operating margin improves despite decline in reported margin
A closer reading of the numbers shows a stronger improvement in the media business’s core operations than the reported EBITDA margin indicates.

Operating EBITDA of Rs 933 crore represented around 8.5% of revenue from operations, compared with nearly 7.4% in the same quarter last year. This implies an improvement of about 110 basis points in the underlying operating margin.

However, total EBITDA, after including investment income, increased by only 3.1% to Rs 1,049 crore.

Investment income declined 61.7% to Rs 116 crore from Rs 303 crore a year earlier. As a result, the reported EBITDA margin fell by 100 basis points to 9.6% from 10.6%.

While the disclosed headline margin contracted, the advertising, subscription and content operations generated better profitability on a larger revenue base.

Finance costs fell 62.7% to Rs 44 crore from Rs 118 crore, providing further support to the growth in profit after tax. Depreciation increased 7% to Rs 338 crore.

JioHotstar monthly users reach record 530 million
JioHotstar recorded average monthly active users of 530 million during the quarter, its highest level so far and 15% higher than a year earlier.

The platform’s entertainment watch time increased 16% year-on-year, indicating that the growth was not limited to users arriving for major sporting events.

The IPL remained the biggest audience driver during the quarter. JioStar said IPL 2026 became the most-watched season of the tournament, reaching 1.2 billion viewers across digital and linear television.

Its digital reach stood at 700 million during the tournament.

The company said the IPL delivered strong monetisation despite macroeconomic pressures, particularly those arising from the conflict in the Middle East. It did not disclose the tournament’s advertising revenue or provide a split between television and digital monetisation.

Regional-language watch time during the IPL increased 33% on digital, reinforcing JioStar’s strategy of offering sports across multiple language feeds to reach audiences beyond the major metropolitan markets.

The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup also attracted sponsors across categories including consumer electronics, artificial intelligence and wellness.

JioStar combines audience scale with commerce
JioStar used the IPL to expand beyond conventional video advertising by integrating search, interaction and commerce into the viewing experience.

The company introduced multilingual voice search through its OpenAI partnership and integrated Swiggy into JioHotstar to enable viewers to order food without leaving the platform.

JioStar said the Swiggy partnership generated an “unprecedented” number of food orders during the IPL. Half the users who engaged with the integration came from Tier-II and smaller cities.

The disclosure points to a broader attempt to build transactional advertising formats around live content. Instead of limiting brand engagement to video spots or sponsorship visibility, the platform is trying to connect viewing directly with product discovery and purchases.

JioStar also said its conversational discovery product, launched in partnership with ChatGPT, continued to gain traction, with user engagement improving every month.

Its microcontent hub, Tadka, crossed 100 million active users within two months of launch. Daily watch time per user increased five times over the same period, according to the company.

JioHotstar also launched its first AI-generated microdrama, Game On: 4,000 Crore Empire, using its in-house JAMS platform.

Television retains reach and regional leadership
On television, JioStar retained its leading position in entertainment with a 34% viewership share and reached more than 810 million viewers across India.

In the Hindi-speaking markets pay-TV segment, the network recorded a 44% viewership share during the quarter.

Star Plus had five of the ten most-watched Hindi general entertainment programmes, while Laughter Chefs Season 3 remained the leading non-fiction show.

Star Utsav maintained its leadership in the free-to-air entertainment segment after entering DD FreeDish in April 2025.

The company said Star Pravah, Star Jalsha, Star Maa, Star Vijay, Asianet and Colors Gujarati retained leadership in their respective regional markets.

JioStar also reported a 47% share of the children’s television genre, making it the top-ranked kids’ TV network during the quarter.

Originals and live premieres add to digital engagement
JioHotstar’s original entertainment franchises also recorded higher engagement.

The second season of Thukra Ke Mera Pyaar grew 50% over its previous season, while Inspector Avinash Season 2 recorded 65% season-on-season growth.

The company said Pritam and Pedro opened with record viewership and engagement, becoming the top Hindi special of 2026.

The live premiere of Dhurandhar: The Revenge generated record viewership for the platform. One in four viewers interacted through live chat, memes or trivia, while one in five engaged with commerce features during the premiere.

These figures show JioStar’s effort to turn premieres into interactive events rather than treating streaming releases as passive viewing occasions.

Scale is translating into stronger core earnings
JioStar’s quarter was supported by the combination of the IPL, growth in digital entertainment advertising, subscription revenue and continued television leadership.

The most important financial indicator was the 30.7% rise in EBITDA from operations against 14% revenue growth. It suggests that the business generated stronger operating leverage despite continuing to invest in content, technology and interactive products.

The decline in investment income concealed some of that improvement in the reported EBITDA margin.

The next challenge will be sustaining this underlying profitability after the IPL quarter. JioStar will need entertainment subscriptions, digital advertising and television revenues to keep growing once the extraordinary reach and monetisation associated with India’s largest cricket property normalise. BestMediaInfo