For much of the streaming era, success in media has been measured by scale. Subscriber milestones, monthly active users, viewing hours, and market share became the metrics that defined winners and losers. As platforms raced to attract larger audiences, scale often came to mean one thing: reach.
But as the industry matures, that definition is beginning to evolve. In markets where audiences consume content across multiple screens, formats, and languages, the challenge is no longer simply attracting viewers. Rather, it’s keeping them engaged, serving them personalised experiences, and creating new ways for them to interact with content.
That shift formed the backdrop of a fireside chat titled ‘Redefining Scale’ at APOS 2026, where Kevin Vaz, CEO of Entertainment at JioStar, shed light on how the industry’s understanding of scale is changing.
India’s media landscape offers a unique lens through which to view this transition. Home to more than 1.4 billion people and one of the world’s most dynamic streaming markets, the country has become a proving ground for new models of content consumption.
Against this backdrop, Vaz reflected on the journey of JioStar since the merger of JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar in November 2024, and what that experience has taught him about building at scale.
“What they don’t understand, what they don’t see, is the complexity,” Vaz said. “We are getting two highly successful companies together, each with their own technology, content, consumer base, and cultures, and bringing them together.”
Within three months, the two services were consolidated into JioHotstar, creating one of the world’s largest streaming platforms.
Rethinking scale in the streaming era
Today, JioHotstar reports more than 500 million monthly active users, over a billion app downloads, and 260 million paid subscriptions. It also claims 100% pin-code coverage across India.
Yet Vaz was quick to steer the conversation away from metrics alone. “Scale is not about how many people you reach. Scale is defined as what is the impact you have on people’s lives after you reach them,” he noted.
For him, the bigger achievement has been creating a seamless experience across a vast content ecosystem.
“A consumer got access to nearly 300,000 hours of content,” he said, “and they got it in a very seamless manner, in the way they wanted it, and consumed it on the screen that they wanted.”
Technology as a growth driver
The conversation then turned to a question many media companies are grappling with: are they content businesses powered by technology, or technology businesses that happen to distribute content?
For Vaz, the distinction is increasingly irrelevant.
“The distinction behind looking at JioStar as a technology or a content company — those lines have blurred,” he said. “Clearly, for us, we see JioStar as a technology company that also delivers content.”
While storytelling remains the foundation of entertainment, technology is becoming essential to how stories are discovered, distributed, personalised, and experienced.
“Storytelling will always be at the core of everything that we do. But it will require technology to make sure how this storytelling is transmitted, personalised, experienced — and how you do this at scale.”
That thinking has informed JioStar’s investments in AI-powered discovery, its partnership with OpenAI, and the development of new content formats designed for evolving consumer habits.
From the sofa to the checkout
If technology is changing how audiences consume content, commerce could change how media businesses monetise it.
One of the most animated parts of the discussion centred on the convergence of entertainment and transactions. According to Vaz, the industry is moving beyond an era where advertising and subscriptions are the only meaningful revenue streams.
“The industry has always had just two revenue streams — advertising and subscriptions. Commerce is something we think would be a really big third revenue stream as we go forward.”
He argued that audiences increasingly want to engage with content beyond simply watching it.
“Engagement is not only about this passive viewing of content. Today, engagement is about coming, following your stars, interacting with them, posting memes, trying to understand more about the characters you love. And lastly, it’s also about trying to see how you get into commerce.”
JioStar has already tested that proposition through integrations that allow sports viewers to order food via Swiggy and Instamart without leaving the platform, alongside experiments in shoppable entertainment and branded commerce experiences.
A multi-platform consumption model
Underlying many of these initiatives is Vaz’s long-held belief that India is an “AND” market.
Consumers do not choose between television and digital, long-form and short-form, or mobile and connected TV. Instead, they move fluidly between them throughout the day.
“From a consumer point of view, he comes to get entertained,” Vaz said. “He could come and watch a movie with his family in the morning. Immediately after that, in his free time, watch something on his vertical. In the evening, come and watch a match.”
Connected television has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments of that ecosystem, with JioHotstar now reaching more than 85 million connected TV homes.
The launch of Tadka, JioHotstar’s micro-drama offering, reflects the same philosophy. Designed for mobile-first consumption, the format attracted close to 100 million users within weeks of launch, according to Vaz.
From passive viewing to active engagement
As the conversation drew to a close, Vaz was asked what entertainment might look like five years from now.
While acknowledging the difficulty of predicting the pace of technological change, he was clear on one point: audiences will become increasingly active participants rather than passive viewers.
“The future of entertainment is not passive,” he said. “Entertainment will change from being a passive consumption to being a much more active, involved consumer.”
In that future, content, commerce, community participation, gaming, and social interaction will become increasingly interconnected. Consumers will not simply watch, but they will engage, interact, transact, and participate within the same ecosystem.
For Vaz, that evolution brings the conversation back to where it began. The future of scale will not be determined solely by how many people a platform reaches, but by how deeply it becomes embedded in their everyday lives.
