Uday Shankar warns against uniform regulation of TV and digital

Mumbai: Media veteran and JioStar Vice-Chairman Uday Shankar has cautioned regulators against applying a one-size-fits-all approach to television and digital platforms, arguing that such homogenisation would erode value across the media ecosystem.

Speaking during a session at WAVES 2025, Shankar said, “If the media companies have not innovated enough, the regulators are even further behind. That's the sad reality.”

He added, “You keep hearing, even now, the conversations about all screens should be treated alike. No, you cannot do that. Then you will kill the value in both businesses.”

Drawing a clear distinction between traditional and digital media, Shankar said, “Television is a very different business. It's a household subscription. It's a big screen. Digital businesses or digital screens are private screens, personal screens, individual screens. The two have very different purposes. The two are in very different stages of evolution.” 

He emphasised the need for regulatory flexibility to allow both segments to thrive independently: “One is mature, somewhat ageing. The other is just emerging. You need to leave them free to compete. You need to support where it is required. But to homogenise everything will mean that you are homogeneously destroying value from both.”

Shankar’s remarks come at a time when India’s policymakers are grappling with how to regulate fast-evolving digital platforms while maintaining the legacy broadcast framework.

“India is still running on 70-year-old media monetisation models”

Shankar, who now helms the newly merged JioStar, charted India’s rise as a global video consumption powerhouse but warned that growth would stall without urgent innovation in content formats, distribution strategies, and especially, monetisation models.

While digital content and distribution have evolved dramatically, Shankar pointed to a glaring vacuum in business model reinvention: “There has been zero innovation in monetisation. For 70 years, it’s been the same formula—advertising and subscription. Today, that model is under attack from e-commerce platforms, tech giants, short video apps, and yet, we haven’t found anything new.”

He urged Indian media players to go beyond just content creativity: “Innovate the product. Innovate the content. And then invent how you make money. That’s when the market and shareholders begin to value you.”

Pay TV is not dead—We just stopped feeding it

Challenging the prevailing narrative that Pay TV is on the decline, Shankar said, “India continues to be a Pay TV market. We just stopped nurturing it. You starve even a healthy child, and it’ll fall sick.”

He noted that since the JioStar merger, Pay TV has added subscribers for the first time in years. “More households are subscribing to cable and satellite. It’s a reminder that affordability and local relevance still matter. This will always be a price-sensitive market, and we must respect that.”

“Domestic enterprise drove India’s video boom”

Reflecting on the past three decades, Shankar said the rise of television in India was powered by affordability and local initiative. “People once mocked India as a low-ARPU market. But that was our strength. Television became ubiquitous in less than a decade—not through imported blueprints, but because domestic enterprise and capital built it.”

He stressed that India’s video surge was rooted in indigenous innovation, even as foreign capital played a minor supporting role. “The explosion in content and consumption is one of the most remarkable stories of the last 30 years.”

R 30,000 crore in content spend this year alone

Shankar revealed that JioStar—formed from the Disney-Reliance merger—has already invested heavily in content creation: “In 2024, the two entities together spent Rs 25,000 crore. In 2025, we’ve spent Rs 30,000 crore. And we expect to exceed Rs 32,000 crore next year. That’s over $10 billion in just three years.”

He clarified that such investment is fundamentally domestic-facing: “When global companies announce content spends, they often aim at international audiences. Our investments are made for Indian viewers—and recovered from them. It’s a completely different value cycle.”

Streaming breaks the myth of subscription limits

On the streaming side, Shankar noted that traditional wisdom pegged India’s subscription ceiling at 15–20 million. “We’ve blown that myth to smithereens. This market is far deeper—our growth trajectory proves it.”

He added that keeping affordability front and center is key: “If your goal is to reach 300 million or half a billion users, pricing strategies must reflect the economic realities of Indian households.”

The streaming surge is real, but content must catch up

He credited India’s streaming revolution—led by platforms like Hotstar, now JioHotStar—for unlocking massive viewership: “Today, nearly 700 million people consume streaming content. On our own platform, we have over 500 million users.”

However, he cautioned that content innovation hasn’t kept pace. “In segments like sports, we’ve done well, taking commentary and experiences into dialects like Bhojpuri and Haryanvi. But across the board, we’re still importing models and content that don’t fit. Indian content must be made locally, tailored to Indian aspirations—and if it travels globally, great. But we can’t expect imported content to serve India’s needs.”

Indian audiences have outpaced creators

Shankar believes that India’s viewers are evolving faster than its content producers. “The consumer has moved far ahead. We can’t keep creating one-size-fits-all content from Mumbai for all of India. Nor can we rely on international content to meet local aspirations.”

He underscored the importance of building creative infrastructure—writers, directors, and actors—capable of servicing 750 million daily content consumers. “We’re not limited by capital. We’re limited by talent access and production bandwidth.”

Brand building has only just begun

On the advertising front, Shankar said India has only scratched the surface. “We’ve stayed with the same pool of advertisers for too long. Now, economic value is being created in Tier 3 and Tier 4 towns. We need to help those businesses become brands. That’s how we grow advertising and media value.”

Indian media must think like tech giants

Responding to comparisons with global behemoths like Tencent, Netflix, and Bytedance, Shankar said Indian media needs a radical shift in ambition and structure. “The notion of a media company has changed. But Indian media companies haven’t. If we want global valuation, we need to reinvent—not just produce great content.”

Bollywood ‘Frozen in time,’ theatrical ecosystem out of touch

One of his sharpest critiques was reserved for the Hindi film industry, which he called “frozen in time” and disconnected from its audience. “The southern film industries—Tamil, Telugu, Kannada—are thriving. But Bollywood is recycling outdated formats. We’ve blocked new talent for too long. You cannot have a country where 65% of the population is under 35 and 90% of the creative industry is over 60. That’s unsustainable.”

He added that the movie-going experience in North India has become too expensive, limiting its reach. “My own brother, a senior military officer, told me that watching a film in a theatre leaves a hole in the pocket. In South India, ticket prices are lower, and theatre-going remains accessible. That’s a lesson.”

He called for urgent course correction across distribution, creativity, and inclusion of new talent, stating, “These are not cosmetic issues—they go to the heart of future growth.”

The movie-going experience has become “Eventised and expensive”

Highlighting affordability gaps in theatrical viewing, Shankar recounted a conversation with his own brother, a senior military officer. “He told me going to the movies leaves a hole in your pocket. That shouldn’t be the case.”

He praised South India’s more inclusive pricing model, where lower ticket rates have kept the theatrical culture vibrant.