Lionsgate Play President Introduces Free One-Week Streaming Access in India

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate Play is offering free access to its entire content library for a week from October 18 to 24 as part of its ‘Gatecrash Lionsgate’ campaign in India – just ahead of the country’s major Diwali holiday.

This campaign includes free access to the Indian premiere of Lionsgate Play Paris has fallenPart of the Has fallen Franchise starring Mehdi Meskar, Tewfik Jallab and Ritu Arya.

Now in its fourth year, the streaming service from Lionsgate India and Starz has focused on building a content library focused on Hollywood action films with titles dubbed into four to five Indian languages.

Rohit Jain, president of Lionsgate Play (Asia), told Deadline that in addition to action, Lionsgate Play is also seeing strong audience adoption in the horror genre – and he is also closely monitoring the popularity of Korean content.

“We will probably make some bets on Korean content in the coming year,” Jain said. “Our service is growing very quickly in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Philippines, and in all of these countries we are starting to see that Korean content is becoming a really important second area after Hollywood.”

Jain added that he is also considering factual and sports content as part of the platform’s future growth strategies.

Lionsgate Play currently has an audience reach of 25 million to 30 million people, which Jain said gives the platform a “healthy subscriber base” to draw from.

“With this reach, we are able to drive a nice, solid double-digit subscriber conversion rate,” Jain said. “My business metrics – subscribers, revenue and profit and loss – everything falls into place from there.”

The platform’s library includes titles such as Past lives, Tokyo Vice, Normal people, The Iron Claw, The beekeeperFranchises like John Wick, The Hunger Games And Seenand award shows such as the Primetime Emmy Awards, Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and BAFTA Awards.

The primary age range of Lionsgate Play’s audience is 25 to 45 years old. 30% to 35% of the streamer’s viewers are female, while the remaining 65% to 70% of viewers are male.

Jain said his main priority is to continue to expand the reach of the platform. His company’s next goal is to reach 50 million viewers.

“India is quite interesting because it is one of the few markets where local language production has a larger share of the pie than Hollywood content,” Jain said. “Historically, Hollywood content in India has been intended for a privileged audience, so I think breaking down those barriers of privilege and barriers of distribution has always been our guiding principle in everything we have done so far.”

In India, Lionsgate Play has entered into OTT bundling partnerships with Amazon Prime Video and Tata Play Binge.

Overseas, Lionsgate Play has established global telecommunications partnerships with Dhiraagu in the Maldives; PLDT, Smart Inc and NCell in the Philippines; and Grameenphone in Bangladesh.

“We continually monitor trends in consumer viewing habits to ensure we make it as convenient as possible for viewers to find content. You want to look for reach, but you also want to look for discoveries where convenience is key,” Jain said.