JioStar, India’s leading media platform, generated revenue of Rs 10,946 million ($1,140 million) for the three months ended June 30, 2026. This was a 14% year-over-year increase due to subscription growth and a surge in digital advertising.
Operating EBITDA rose 30.7% to 933 million rupees ($96.8 million), with the company pointing to operating leverage on the back of strong top-line performance.
The group’s streaming platform JioHotstar averaged 530 million monthly active users in the quarter, an all-time high and a 15% year-on-year increase. Total entertainment viewing time on the service increased by 16% over the same period. The quarter’s largest viewership event, the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament, reached 1.2 billion viewers across digital and terrestrial TV, of which 700 million watched on digital alone, making it the most-watched T20 tournament on record.
In terrestrial television, JioStar network accounted for 34% share of total viewership and reached over 810 million viewers across India, according to BARC data. In Hindi-speaking markets, the network’s pay-TV share rose to 44%. Star Plus ranked five shows in the top 10 Hindi general entertainment titles for the quarter, with ‘Laughter Chef Season 3’ taking first place in non-fiction. Star Utsav maintained its lead in the free-to-air segment after entering DD FreeDish in April 2025, while its regional stables Star Pravah, Star Jalsha, Star Maa, Star Vijay, Asianet and Colors Gujarati maintained their top-ranked positions in their respective markets. JioStar also reported a viewership share of 47% for children’s TV, making it No. 1 in this category.
On the digital product front, JioStar’s short-form content hub, Tadka, crossed 100 million active users within two months of its launch and has seen a five-fold increase in daily watch time per viewer since the launch of the feature. The conversational discovery tool built on ChatGPT is live on the platform and has seen user engagement increase every month since its introduction. Commerce integration with Swiggy enables in-app food ordering during live streams and debuted during IPL matches. Half of those orders are from tier 2 cities and above. The company’s first AI-generated microdrama, “Game on: 4,000 crore Empire,” produced through the in-house JAMS platform, is also available now.
In sports, regional language viewing time on digital during IPL increased by 33% year-on-year. JioStar introduced multilingual voice search through OpenAI partnership and Swiggy in-app ordering feature during live IPL matches, providing brand partners with a commerce-linked environment around live sports. ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 generated sponsorship traction during the quarter, attracting partners from the consumer electronics, AI and wellness categories.
Among originals, ‘Thukra Ke Mera Pyaar’ Season 2 and ‘Inspector Avinash’ Season 2 recorded 50% and 65% year-on-season viewership growth, respectively. ‘Pritam and Pedro’ launched to record ratings and became the number one Hindi special of 2026. The live premiere of Durandal: The Revenge on JioHotstar garnered notable attention, with one in four viewers participating in live chat, memes and trivia, and one in five using the commerce feature during the broadcast.
The first-quarter results follow a full year in which Reliance’s media business, which spans JioStar, JioHotstar, Jio Studios and Network18, posted annual revenue of 34,917 million rupees ($3.7 billion), as revealed by chairman Mukesh Ambani at the company’s annual general meeting in June.
