JioHotstar’s Sushant Sreeram dismantles the SVOD-AVOD divide

New Delhi: At APOS 2025, held in Bali and organised by Media Partners Asia (MPA), Sushant Sreeram, Head of SVOD Business and CMO, JioStar, joined a panel discussion on Transforming the Entertainment Experience & Developing New Monetisation Models. 

He was joined by Aditya Swamy, Regional Director – India, SEA, ANZ, Google Play, and Sutanto Hartono, Managing Director, Emtek & CEO, SCM & Vidio. 

The conversation spanned business models, platform strategy, content innovation, and the role of AI. Sreeram shared insights on how JioHotstar is reshaping video engagement and monetisation at scale.

On the platform’s monetisation approach, Sreeram shared that JioHotstar deliberately avoids locking itself into fixed business models. “We often talk about SVOD and AVOD like they’re mutually exclusive, but the reality is far more fluid. Our challenge and opportunity have been to serve more than 500 million MAUs and close to 300 million subscribers across a continuum of monetisation options. It’s about creating flexibility in how people engage and pay,” he said.

He emphasised that one-size-fits-all strategies no longer work, especially in a market as layered as India. “A good principle for tiering is thinking about features that are invaluable to a few and invisible to many. We haven’t stretched the bounds of how we think about pricing and access widely enough yet,” he noted. Pointing to purchasing power disparities, he added, “The top 10% of households in India, on a purchasing power parity basis, have the same GDP per capita as the UK or Germany. But the next 10% look nothing like their counterparts in these markets. That’s where innovation needs to happen.

Product experience and content discovery were also central to JioHotstar’s recent success. Referencing this year’s IPL, Sushant revealed that despite being in its 18th season, the tournament saw a 40% surge in viewership during the opening weekend. “That didn’t happen by chance; it was a result of deliberate product thinking. From multi-cam and VR to regional language localisation, we reimagined what a sports experience could look like,” he said.

He pointed out that machine learning plays a critical role in shaping and scaling user experiences. “Whether it’s real-time localisation, content tagging, or predictive personalisation, AI and LLMs are not about the future; they are already here. But we’re not just trying to court attention. We want to court emotion. If a tool helps us tell stories better or serve the right story to the right person, then it has a place in our ecosystem.”

Reflecting on what lies ahead, Sushant said the company remains committed to leading with empathy and scale. “We’re fortunate to have built at the intersection of product, storytelling, and technology. But success in a market like India isn’t about building for it — it’s about building from it. That means listening closely, designing with agility, and monetising with empathy.”