STARZPLAY is Redefining Streaming in the Middle-East

Sunil Joy Introduces Stars Play's Vision and Transformation We're live in recording for a very exciting conversation with Sunil Joy. Sunil Joy is the Head of Content Partnerships and Sports with Stars Play, and he's joining us all the way from Dubai. Sunil's got a very exciting portfolio that he's going to explain to us about. Sunil, wonderful to see you today and thank you so much for making the time. Speaker 2 You're welcome, and the pleasure is all mine. Hello everybody. Speaker 1 Fantastic. Your voice is going across to the entire between our community. We are close to about 150,000 people around the world across 100 countries within the entertainment supply chain. And our key sort of focus is to, you know, have the spotlight shining on innovators, leaders, thought leaders such as yourself who are really creating the new reality for this industry. As this industry is going through this massive amount of transformation with all the forces of changes that are happening on the on the business, on the content, on the making of the content and everything in between. Again, one of the key aspects that I wanted to sort of maybe start out with would be to sort of, you know, we have a, we have a way that we start, which is with our elevator pitch. So if you can, you know, give an elevator pitch for stars play and the, the business in general. A little bit of a background also of the the the ownership and and how, how the brand is is how did how did the brand come about? Speaker 2 So I think to start with, to give you an introduction, Stars play is now the entertainment arm of E&E and which is previously known as ETA Salat. And and now it is basically known as I mean, it's it's now in the market out there as E Ant is probably one of the largest telcos in the region. And also, you know, among the top telcos of the world in terms of its reach. It has spread across 38 different countries and it's got about 250 million subscribers. So in terms of volume and scale, it's a very big platform. It's a very big operator as a telco and what has emerged over the years is from the telco the country has actually modify to become it or transformed is right. Word has transformed to become a tech Co and among the verticals that we saw the maximum amount of you know expansion in the last couple of years has been in entertainment. A stars play is the entertainment arm of E and now a little bit of background. I think you know as a company, you know we talk about the Salath which is now E and what we have seen on it during my tenure in the company, what I've seen is the transformation of wanting to stay ahead of the game all the time. So when you know, there was satellite and there was a lot of people out there trying to, you know, get content across to consumers E and realized that there is an opportunity. And then it set up a cable network in the region, which was one of the first cable TV networks. And then when distribution changed from satellite and the, you know, towards Internet, it then went on to lay down the fiber network, which was already there in place. And then using the fiber network, it launched on IPTV service and then OTT picked up momentum in the region. I think EN today owns one of the biggest and most successful OTT players in the region, regional players in the region, which is Stars play. And at Stars Play, my job is about managing partnerships and I also had the sports portfolio. From Cable TV to OTT: Sunil's Journey and Stars Play's Evolution Fantastic and and again, both are very, very exciting aspects of of the business, especially on their on the content side now. Thanks for the background, Sunil. And again, I wanted to sort of, you know, pivot into your own background. You've got a very rich and checkered career history. We go back a long way, you know, almost 15 years, maybe more, actually a little bit more. And again, it was a pleasure reconnecting with you and and you know, look at meet you in this new avatar that you have. So give us a little bit about, you know, you know, how you got here and your personal journey. Speaker 2 I joined Evision, which was the initial setup of the cable TV company that mentioned and I was in sales at that point of time, you know, when everybody was used to free to air. In fact, this was the reason I think we're free to wear was so predominantly strong and one of the few places where you had premium western entertainment free to wear, which is still there and I'm referring to the NBC channels. At that point of time, we joined, I joined as in sales at E Vision and then I went on to lead the sales team, then at a later stage went on to you know lead the product team at E Vision. And from there I think, you know, it is more of a transition from understanding the business and understanding the market to see what more value I can add. And then in my latest role is where I had the content. At one point of time I was heading the whole of content for E Vision. And now with the merger with Stars Play, I look after the portfolio that is mainly around sports and partnerships. Speaker 1 Understood. And then that, that's a fascinating journey. And I think it kind of covers, you know, all the the key aspects, business content, partnerships and then of course, entertainment in sports. I was curious also about the genesis of the brand, you know, at the seller has gone through a lot of these transformations. And if you can talk a little bit about, you know, the more recent history, especially relating to the, the, the merger as well. Give us a little bit of a sense of, you know, just the timeline and and also what's changed in the in the overall composition of the company. Speaker 2 Okay, so if you going back in time, I think you know the cable television business or the entertainment arm of E and which was then at the Salat just completed close to 26 years now. And in the process you know from being a cable operator, a company that was set up to distribute, aggregate and distribute content through set of boxes over coax cables in the region. It went on to actually become an aggregator for the parent company itself when SSLR decided to you know, come bundle together entertainment with telephony and broadband, which is a triple play service. And then it started also doing mobile bundling with you know with the rollout of 5G and when connectivity became, you know, the core of what we were doing. Now from that, I think when the, you know, when the opportunity came for us to get back into the DTC business, what we did is we went ahead and you know, we had a minority stake in Stars Play. And then over the period of last two years that was increased into a majority stake and it was in towards the last quarter of 2025 that we actually completed to become a complete merged entity. And now Stars Play, which which has got about 33 million subscribers in total bridge in the region in a hybrid model between ward in as in with a ward and as what put together. So I think it's one of the few players that have actually, you know, managed to get the balance right where we have content available on the platform outside of the pay wall and behind the pay wall as well. We do sports outside of the pay wall and some of the premium sports. We actually have again a very successful hybrid model which we've tried and tested and built over the years. And that's that's what what's happening right now at the stage. Understanding the Diverse and Fragmented Middle East Market Fascinating. And again, you know, what's very peculiar about the Middle Eastern market is that it looks so different from a lot of other countries in give us AI mean if you can paint a little bit of a landscape picture of how things are right now structured. Speaker 2 I think, you know, if I have to put it into a, you know, very simple format or explain it a bit in a simple way, I'd say that this is a place where we've got just about 200 nationalities living, especially in the United Arab Emirates. And as being a telco, we have a clear visibility on the number of people who are, you know, subscribers with us. So it is a country that needs to cater to a very diverse population that speaks different languages. So getting the right entertainment solution for this, you know, diverse population has always been a tricky 1. So it's a market where the global platforms like the Amazons and the Netflix have managed to establish themselves very well. At the same time, there is enough room for the regional players to find the, you know, their mark and also manage to establish themselves as, you know, key players in the region. And that's again, one thing that we have done is task play as well, identifying the gaps able to compete, not exactly compete also to exist along with the major players, having our own, you know, our own space when it comes to the, you know, the consumers subscriptions, that's that's there today on an average, this region has got, I think we're doing about 2 1/2 to 3 subscriptions per person. That's the average. And again when you divide the whole of MENA, you have the GCC which is the Gulf countries where you have the seven GCC countries with a higher output. And in some of in the the two, I think I mean among the seven you would say that UAE and KSA would be the highest in terms of ARPU and the ability for customers to subscribe to multi services there the average would be about 3 plus. So it's, it's a very interesting market, but the truth is it is also very fragmented. And I think that's where the opportunity lies. If a platform can or platforms can actually switch from being, you know, pure OTT play to become aggregators and actually find the right balance. Because again, like I said, 200 nationalities is 1. But there is one thing common about all these nationalities is there will be certain genres of entertainment that goes across multiple, you know, multiple demographics. And so it's, it's obviously important that we find a way when it comes to sports and entertainment, how we can actually strike a balance and at the same time also striking a balance from a price point that becomes very tricky. But there is a lot of opportunity. It is an exploring market at this stage. And I think in the next 5 years, we might start seeing more of consolidation, which is of course happening globally. But here I think the consolidation would be more of the global brands and the regional brands getting into a coexistence and figuring out the best way that they can actually serve the consumers in this region effectively. Stars Play's MENA Focus and Content Acquisition Hurdles That, that kind of heterogeneity is really remarkable. 200 nationalities, I mean there are 200 countries in the world and you're saying basically that all the countries are represented, Yes, within Dubai. Just fascinating, you know, in terms of the geographical reach for stars play, I'm sure that it goes into a much wider geography than the parent company. Give us a little bit about the geographical spread of these businesses and what are the the top markets you know that you see within within your scheme of things? Speaker 2 If you were to divide, you know Ian, like I said today they're in about 38 countries and serving about 250 million subscribers as of end of 2025. The data that's out there in the public domain as Play is focused more around the MENA region as AD to C ServiceNow, again, that's one part of the business. We also have AB to B part of the business where we are integrated well with telcos. And then of course, there is AB to B to C, which is more of partnerships right now. That is on the entertainment and the streaming side. But as a technology provider as well, stars Play is out there powering some of the OTT services in countries like India, Pakistan. Then we've got a major project that's happening in Central Europe. We've got so as a technology provider as well, starting to find its base and is slowly getting into those markets enabling other OTT services. Speaker 1 OK. That's fascinating. I did not know that part of the other business. So that's the B2B pieces. Speaker 2 No, that's not exactly the B2B2B is there in content site and then as technology, as a service, we have got you know, an entire vertical that's managed separately. Speaker 1 OK, fascinating. And then also the the what you talked about the the spread of it, it's a lot across 38 markets and that that's it. That itself is impressive just in terms of the overall reach that the the brand has. Again, going back to then stars play, you know, the the content choices that you have to make, the licenses for different content that you're acquiring. Talk a little bit about, you know, how how's that sort of how's that decision matrix for you? Speaker 2 So I think if you know for us what it's been has been a learning curve over the last many years because initially I think we had the first movers advantage of stars play when we were one of the first few OTT services in the region. In fact we were the second. The reason we've managed to survive I think has been more about the partnerships and the, you know, the distribution network that we've built, especially with telcos now. It was I think we were the first in the region to actually seamlessly integrate with telcos, right on the telcos, you know, distribution networks so that the customers actually get a more, you know, precise and trustable brand, which is endorsed by the telco as a new entrant into the market. So that did work for us. Now coming to the content side of it, it has always been a challenge because content to a great extent is proprietary. Now, you know, it's it's it's very little that available out there to license. With all the consolidation that's happening, studios are actually rolling back on content, holding it on for their own OTT services. And this market did see the, you know, the launch of Disney Plus, which took away a sizable part of the licensing content. Then, of course, there is an existing partnership between OSN and Warner Brothers, which also as a result of which a lot of the major studio content from the Warner Brothers studio was not available Netflix by itself in the regions. Licensing has always been a challenge in this market. And you know, more or less now what's happening or what might work or what should work for us is how successfully you can actually bring partners who are equally invested into the business to work with us to see how we can actually get, you know, these the content or their tent holes or their flagship content to a wider audience. Building Relevance Through Turkish and Abu Dhabi Media Partnerships So that's that's the direction at which stars play has been moving over the last few years. And I think some of the best, best examples of what I can actually relate this to and quote here would be, for instance, one of the regional players in the region is Hilal Play, which is a Turkish OTT ServiceNow Stars Play has got a partnership with Hilal Play where the Turkish content is actually available as part of the Stars Plays OTT subscription. They I think in UAE, the Abu Dhabi Media Adm and they call it now Abu Dhabi Media Company had probably 1 of the oldest broadcasters like the BBC. And to do do Dashans, the one of the oldest broadcasters in the region has been there from the foundation right from the time the country was born back in 1970s. So from then on, Abu Dhabi Media had established a very good lineup of broadcast channels. And then as OTT and digital distribution began to evolve, they did try having their own OTT app, but very quickly they realized that, you know, creating content is 1, but finding the right distribution channels is a bigger part of the challenge. And today, all good news is that Abu Dhabi, the entire Abu Dhabi content lineup and its content originals rest Onstar's play as a part of a branded partnership. Wow. So we are the home of Adm, and that's Abu Dhabi Media. We are the home of Hilal play at this stage. And then again, as we go along, we are working towards more and more of these partnerships falling into place. Speaker 1 Fascinating. And that that there's a very large dose of content, local content, regional content that typically comes in through these partnerships. Again, Turkish is is very popular, you know, after I'm guessing Arabic, it's perhaps maybe a fairly important language to represent is that, is that right? Speaker 2 Turkish works very well. Again, Turkish is very clear when you look at the ROM. You know, the, the romantic dramas at the same time, the historical ones, there is a very clear defined fan following for both. And so historic has always worked. And you know, it's a sure shot success when you get it right. And if you have the right depth of the production quality, then it's very easy for most of the historical Turkish dramas to find its audience in this region. But having said that, I think even the, the you know, the the dramas, the romantic dramas also pick up quite a lot of momentum and eyeballs here. And Turkish, like you said, is one of the most successful or sure, short success for most platforms to, you know, but again, they're the challenges about, you know, whether it people like to see it dubbed and whether people like to see it with the subtitles. And like going back to what I said earlier, with 200 different nationalities, the challenge remains that not everyone likes it dubbed and not everyone likes to read subtitles. That's right. So trying to find the balance of content that is available with multiple audios at the same time, also available in the original audio with subtitles kind of work. Producing Originals with a Focus on Commercial Viability and ROI Understood, understood. No, Fascinating. I was actually curious and I'm, I'm sure you get this question a lot both internally and externally is do you end up financing any originals, any productions you know, from where you sit or is that kind of work in progress? Is that something that we can expect in the future? Paint a little bit of that the dilemma of trying to secure exclusive content from a stars play perspective. Speaker 2 We've done a few, we've done a few good productions, $1,000,000 listing, for instance, $1,000,000 listing the the Dubai version of it is done by Stars Play as a Stars Play original. But what we try and do basically is that before we green light to production, we try and make sure that, you know, from a commercial perspective, we the ROI and the, you know, the break even analysis is done in a way that we can make sure that the the revenue is in by the time we Commission it and before it goes live on the platform. So a lot of it is driven by advertising, brand placements and other, you know, integrations that the team, the commercial team managed to achieve. But yes, again, I think there are format shows that work. We have done one or two. We've done a Arabic show called Caboose, which was an anthology series, the horror series based on mythical stories of the region. So we have done a few. We've done Ramadan cooking show. Almost every platform needs one or two. Speaker 1 Yes, of course. Speaker 2 We do our share, but something that we take a bit of pride in now is, you know, we've done an we've done an animation series, which is a very short format one for a platform that has been thriving on long format shows. I think we experimented with something called Coffee Couture. So it is just a very simple, you know, coffee table discussion between 3 generations, OK. And each of them, you know, each show episodes, it is a minute long, picks up one particular topic, executes it pretty well. And then it it's those fillers that go in during the Ramadan period. And it's an IP that we own or, you know, built. And now we've gone into Season 2 this Ramadan and it's looking good. But yeah, we've done a few good ones. Speaker 1 OK. So, so, OK, so results is already something that, but from what I'm guessing is that it's it's selective, it's targeted, it's pinpointed, it's very deliberate is that yes. Speaker 2 We try not to, we try not to get ourselves exposed a lot into heavy investments which we may struggle to recoup in terms of the ROI. So we try and make sure that at least you know the standard formula which is by default is 70% needs to be recovered before we green light. Speaker 1 You know, I, I mean, I mean, we just spoke to a few sort of experts within the Middle East as well. The market is clearly in on the move. We talk a little bit about, you know, how, what are the, I mean, you talked about ROI, for instance, what is a determinant of ROI and how's that changed over the last few years? Because you know, one factor that came up was that you've got suddenly a new set of markets opening up with theatre, cinema, right? More cinema theatres opening up, especially in KSA, for instance. So is that already part of the economics? Like how you know, plus the the whole cable channels free to air, you know, there's just so many pressure points. What? What does ROI look like today for a producer or a production house? Speaker 2 I wouldn't be able to go very deep into the theatrical side of it, but I know for a fact that when we evaluate and look at performance, the theatrical, you know, business has been in in a country like UAE for a while now. Yes, we've had cinemas for many years. We've had some of the major cinema brands that operate out of in the region operate out of Dubai with their headquarters in Dubai, you know. But having said that, Saudi, like you mentioned, the KSA is the new opportunity for this particular, you know, line of business. But I also feel that it's still a bit early because everyone seems to be sure, but not sure about what will work in Saudi. There are those spikes that come in certain genre when you think would never have, you know, worked in Saudi Arabia. We suddenly see that it's picked a momentum certain, you know, movie releases do very well. And then automatically when you follow that up with something very similar, which would have worked anywhere else, you notice that, you know, the response is not the same as expected. So what what today the market seems to be sensing out is mature. It is maturing a bit in KSA. The people are trying to, you know, first the excitement of the theaters opening made it look like, you know, just about every movie and every show could work in that region. But now as the market is evolving and maturity is coming in, they're being more selective. And now it's going to be a challenge to find the right kind of content that would work in a market like KSA. But having said that, I think in the UAE, to an extent, it's it's predictable. You know, when a certain movie is going to get released, we kind of know whether it's going to be, how is it going to do in the box office here when we pick up a certain show for our platform in particular, we're looking just by the genre and the cast and maybe the production quality, to a great extent, we can predict whether we will get the first clicks that we need, which will contribute towards the ROI. Will the consumption actually contribute towards keeping that engagement level that we expect of it? Those predictions are quite clear and easier to make understood. Leveraging Cricket and Hybrid Models for Audience Acquisition and Retention Understood. Speaker 1 Fascinating. And again, you know there's, I also spoke to OSN recently, they talked about the big domination that they have of Western content that they bring in on their platform. So in this segment, Sunil, what I want to do is to sort of really unpack your portfolio a little bit and really sort of, you know, put the spotlight on on the, the key aspects of what makes up the portfolio, right? So you talked about the partnership with the, the Turkish sort of content company. You know, I also talked about Abu Dhabi Media and that, that that's a very strong partnership. How about some of the other, other aspects? You know, do you, are you sort of acquiring Hollywood content? Are you acquiring Indian content? What about South Asian, Southeast Asian? Again, I was wanting to sort of figure out the the math of the 200 nationalities. How do you sort of, you know, go through some of those those machinations? Speaker 2 There's something very interesting because I've been, you know, in this industry for a while in the region. What I've seen is the rise and fall of, you know, the South Asian, you know, entertainment platforms. So right now if you look at it, there is not a single platform in the region that is specifically scaled up enough to cater to the South Asian, especially when you look at the subcontinent, which is driven a lot by cricket. At the same time, you know, they have the South Asian, again, if you look at it, it's Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, some of the and Urdu. So those kind of regional languages that also matter a lot and you know, each of them have got their different style of storytelling. There's not a single platform in the region that kind of focuses on that particular segment. Now, for us, it came more or less as, you know, grabbing an opportunity as these changes happened in the market. So initially cricket was predominantly managed by, you know, a platform that had the rights for cricket and ran with it for a while. When that was there, what Evision did or what he and as a company did was we basically licensed the content from them, but we continue to service the customers. But moment the platform decided to withdraw from this particular market, we saw the opportunity saying that let's go out there, let's do cricket. So we started off with cricket and that was in 2019. When the opportunity came to us, we grabbed it and then we managed to build the, you know, the, the, the licensing or licensing of most of the major franchises and at the same time as the tournaments. And today we're confidently and very happily, we say call ourselves the home of cricket. So one platform that has actually built on cricket for the region. Now with that we realized that, you know, these are spikes that, you know, sports as an acquisition driver brings about those spikes which every platform loves, but you need to keep those customers on the platform. And that's when we started getting into these entertainment partnerships. 1 I did not mention is Geostar. So we are also so the home of Geostar in the region. Nice. So Geo Hotstar content is part of you know all the all their specials. We try and do almost a day and date release as in India on our platform on stars play and then of course on the sports side, you know, sports drives or works more or less as the acquisition driver here for us. And it's it's very effective. The challenge has always been to retain the customers when the events are over. And we just finished the ICC T20 World Cup this month, right. And then of course for us it has been a challenge to figure out how we're going to keep these customers engaged. We want them to keep coming back on the platform. Now there is no sports, they need to start picking up some of the entertainment content. But again, you know, there is the tricky part is those customers can be easily categorized into 3. So there are the ones that are very much focused and they're only for the sports. And then you have the hybrid. Again, the hybrid are probably the deep hybrid ones which go both into entertainment and the sports and the very selective viewers. So having a strategy built around pricing, promoting content that targets to these particular segments has been very interesting, but I'd say but also an exciting challenge for most of us. Speaker 1 Fascinating. And then so that again the the the cricket part actually makes a lot of sense. The home of cricket branding is is really very powerful, especially, you know, for for for the subcontinent users who are typically sort of drawn to a lot of that cricket seasonal gaming. I was curious also about, you know, the a board versus T board sort of, you know, fork. How do you sort of manage that from, especially for sports and entertainment, what goes on? Speaker 2 I think if you say that one of the few platforms in the region that has got transactional on demand T board and which is also called as P word, S word and a word. So we have we have a combination of every all the three on the platform today. Now, the main reason why I think a word is successful is because again, if you divide the entire MENA region, you know, there is different levels of output that you can achieve. And again, penetrating, there is a lot of opportunity to penetrate. And as connectivity and, you know, distribution is becoming a lot more easier, we need to find the right price points at which we can actually effectively compete in these markets. And having a hybrid model which combines a word with S word is probably the only way if you forward for, you know, a platform to be successful in the region. Otherwise, you know, you will never be able to scale up to those numbers that you would you have the potential to do in the region. And how a word works is again, of course, most of most, most people are aware that this market also has a big challenge when it comes to piracy. Speaker 1 Right. Speaker 2 And when piracy is one of your biggest competitors, I wouldn't say that, you know, the global platforms are competing our biggest competitors, but rather piracy is the biggest challenge for us. When piracy is the biggest challenge, the only way you can actually penetrate and get that market's attention is when you also have content that's available without, you know, without costing the consumer anything. So that's how award came in and award has been a very good top of the funnel for us because it brings in the the viewers, it brings in the downloads, first clicks, then getting that converted into NS. What is where the opportunity lies as well. Again, that also requires a lot of strategic pricing and how we manage to promote, what content do we actually put on the front for each of these markets. Again, 200 nationalities, we're talking about just UAE and KC. But when you look at the rest of it, again, there's a lot more. Egypt is quite different from what you would expect in Morocco, quite different from what you would expect in, you know, the Levant areas, which is Lebanon, Syria, etc. So it becomes very tricky, but yes. Why Strategic Bundling is Key for OTT Success in MENA Got it. Call it wow. That is, that's, that's a, that's an interesting sort of, you know, concoction of of different factors. You know, there is a particular thesis Sunil that you go by especially as you run your portfolio, right, strategic bundling versus standalone licensing, right. That that came up a lot in our initial exchanges. You know, talk a little bit about that thesis because, you know, I think you described a little bit of that right now. But again, when you when you call a sort of when you when you describe something as strategic bundling, right, just unpack that a little bit. Speaker 2 I think let's take a step back and then if you look at it, there is 2 angles or there's three angles to it. You know the view of the angle that the telco looks at it from. Then of course, the OTT service. And then there is the consumer who is at the end of the day, the one who's benefiting most from how these partnerships are structured. Now from a strategic point of view, if you look at it, I think for a telco, having the capacity or having the infrastructure built needs use cases for the consumers to engage with. So again, if you want to sell more bandwidth, if you want to sell higher speeds, technically you need to make sure that there is a use case for the consumer that validates having a higher speed, right. So there was a time when we've seen it from moving from dial up to you know, to fiber connectivity and now going up to 1 gig and above. So those kind of changes or those kind of enhancements in technology needed a use case as well. And content, there's nothing better than in streaming because content streaming is one of the best use cases when it comes to an average consumer utilizing the bandwidth, utilizing the speed of the Internet. So from a telcos perspective, creating the use case was very important but at the same time making it more what did I say? What did I say is making it more attractive for the consumer, pick up a higher bands. You know higher speed has been the initiative. Now, when you look at it from an OTT provider or a content aggregators point of view here, getting the content is one part of the game, but getting the customer or acquiring the customer is a bigger part of the game. And most platforms out there know the cost of acquisition is something that makes or breaks a platform. While, you know, some people say the cost of content is 1, but I'd still say the cost of acquiring and retaining the customer remains the core problem, which most platforms don't get it right. And if you get that right, the rest of the things will start falling in place. So telco partnerships brought about some of the key, you know, success points for defining the success of or sustainability of an OTD service in the region. I think for Startup Cosplay, it has been the core of how we've operated our business. We're the first few to basically go out there, make these telco partnerships. We are partnered with STC in Saudi Arabia. We are partners or E2, we are partners with Zayn, we are partners with E and of course, being the parent company, we are partnered with Mobile E. So those partnerships have always made sure that, you know, we are easily available for consumers, the distribution is taken care of. And then of course, like I mentioned, I think the third part of it is a consumer. At the end of the day, consumers look for value. Consumers think are also not quite happy about the way content is fragmented. And again, you know, there is the Arabs who like Arabic and Western content, There are the Indians who like cricket, South Asian content, watch a bit of Korean, they like Turkish as well. And of course they love the Hollywood content. So finding a place where you can actually get all of these subscriptions, all of this content together makes a big difference. And that kind of pushes consumers to look for solutions that are more or less, you know, from an aggregator model. The Role of FAST Channels and Localization in MENA Streaming Understood. No, that, that, that was a great elaboration of the the thesis. And I was curious when, you know, coming into this call about that divergent with some of the other platforms in terms of how they run their content piece. I was curious also about, you know, where is Star's play sort of headed in terms of its overall expense as far as the, the app is concerned, right? You know, some apps have become, you know, aggregators of other apps as well, especially, I mean, we've seen Prime Video as a key example of that where they have other channels and other apps also represented and modelled. Fast channels catch up again. You mentioned T board, T board is, is already part of your solution. You know, is, is our fast channel sort of there to stay? What's been the the region's response to fast as a as a category? I was curious if you can maybe give some aspects relating to that. Speaker 2 I think if someone has listened to any of my previous, you know, podcasts or talks, they would have seen that I was a big fan of the FAST channels. And I believe that, you know, this market is one of the few things that would actually make an impact on this market considering piracy and the, you know, the keenness or interest of people to consume content which is available at a very low cost or at 0 cost kind of a thing. But what we also realized so. Speaker 1 Going to add that free to air has had been sort of foundation for years, right? Many, many years, right? Speaker 2 Yes, Free to air has been, yeah, one of the most successful, you know, I think in worldwide, this was one of the few places where free to air had thrived. And at one point of time, you know, free to air kind of controlled even the premium licensing windows when it came to some of the studio partnerships. That's right, both Arabic and Western. So fast has been something that has an opportunity. But I feel that, you know, maybe the region has been a bit late in, you know, adapting to fast because the on demand, you know, appointment viewing kind of behavior is actually going away. And there is basically people are people don't have time and want to have stay in stay in full control of their time. So OTT has also made sure that with OTT services on demand is just about there and everything that customers, they can consume, they can consume when they want to consume it. So maybe fast has been a bit, you know, a bit late. But again, I think if you get the right content, you know, composition of putting it in a single IPS rather than making sure that when the customer tunes into a fast channel, the customer knows what to expect and is not surprised by what they see, then I think it might be more or less still something that might survive and just go along with when the core of the business would still stay with on demand services. That's how I see the market is going to be evolving in the next couple of years and fast is going to be there, but it's not going to be the core of any platform solutions. Speaker 1 Audit no, again, those, those, the moment you mentioned fast and, and the freeway channels, I think that that all made sense just in terms of the opportunity and the, the, the background that this market has had years ago. Coming back to the, the, the, the, there was one particular hint that you talked about that you gave earlier about localization. Not everyone accepts subtitles or, or dubbing. And yet as a, as an operator, you have to make those choices. You know, how's localization turned out for you and what have been those experiences is actually sort of solving a lot of the localization aspects. It's made made it cheaper, faster. Of course, you know, quality control is is still a big factor, but where are you on on those aspects today? I. Speaker 2 Think let if I were to say it, let's look at it from, you know, from stars place perspective again going back to my role on partnerships. Now why do we need partnerships as where you know, to answer your question, why do we need partnerships is probably the first step that we would want to look into, right. So again, when you have global players in the market, we know that they will be, you know, doing this, you know, the top layer of the, you know, skimming the market with the content that has a global appeal. But then at the end of the day, for these global players, it's becoming more of a challenge if they really want to get out into the local markets and bring in content that is more relevant to the regional audience, right? So that's where the regional players come into, you know, their niche is created for these regional players. Now for the regional players, the content needs to be resonating with the cultures, with the languages should be something that people can understand at the same time, you know, they can consume and accept. And that's I think that has been that is the need of the moment in this region right now. Shahid as a service is one of the biggest regional players in the market by far. They have carved out their, you know, market share and their position has been well established when it comes to Arabic content. Then of course, global players that take care of Western content. But what's missing is, again, there are these small pockets, there are these small niche segments that needs to be taken care of. And that's again, what I try to do at Stars Play is the right partnerships like the ones with Hilal Play, the one with Geostar, we have done one or two with, you know, some of the Chinese broadcasters. Bringing those kind of partnerships brings more relevance. But at the same time, a partner comes in with more skin in the game here. So technically take care of the bit of the marketing, they take care of bit of, you know, communicating, reaching out to the audience and through social media and other touch points and making sure that awareness also spreads. Because again, when the OGT service is taking care of distribution, awareness still remains. You know, both partners have got a stake in getting it across. So getting that done is 1. Then I would say that, you know, the engagement, again, getting the engagement on a consistent level has been the challenge. Regional relevance is one, but the ability to also create the differentiation has been one of the challenges and something that you know, the stars play we would want to do. So having the right partnership that gives us, you know, not always exclusivity matters. But again, differentiation can come in the form of when do you release it. So if you have a show that rares in India and that's gaining momentum on Geostar and you have a day and date release here for MENA region for it on Star, it does matter because the momentum, the noise around it and the spillover of all the marketing effort that's happening in India will actually have an impact for you here as well. So creating that differentiation is another thing that's very critical. And again, partnerships bring the ability to create the differentiation. Adapting Partnership Models to Serve Underserved Audiences Effectively Got it, got it. So the I'm going to sort of replay what I've learned a little bit, you know, for the benefit of our, our community as well. But I was curious before that the, the Chinese broadcasters that you talked about or the Turkish content that you talked about, right or Geostar, how is this content served? Is it in the the AVOD window? Is it on the S VOD window? Where do you typically put this international content? Speaker 2 So for us, for us I think other than the premium studio pay 1 deals, almost everything we try and do a hybrid model. OK again we manage the windowing depending on you know the markets willingness to pay for it or the advertisers willingness to advertise on it. So depending on the right balance, we try and strike a balance on how we get this content across to the consumers. An example for you is on sports, which is easiest to give an example. We would have some of the IPL matches outside of the pay wall and then of course we would have. You know, the final, some of the premium matches behind a pay wall, some events and tournaments are straightaway outside of the pay wall because we understand that, you know, it's, it's something that people would like to watch but will not put the money to watch on it. So it is about finding the right balance. And again, finding the right balance requires a lot of inputs when it comes to data, you know, consumer behaviors, trying and testing a few things. So last year, what we did in 2025, I think half of IPL was outside of the pay wall. Second-half of the IPL was behind the pave wall this year in 2026. In a few days time when the IPL starts off, our strategy is very clear. We've got the entire IPL behind the pave wall. So again, that's based on what we've learned in the last year and the previous years of how we've taken this to market. Now on the western side, again, there are, you know, there is a lot of the entertainment content that allows us to do windowing. So we might have a show that's running with maybe the first season of it available outside of the pave wall and the latest season behind the pave wall. Then some of the Arabic content works well when we have date releases happening behind a pay wall and then you know, the previous days episodes goes outside of the pay wall because the urgency to watch drives customers ability to our willingness to pay. So those kind of things are, you know, constantly changing. And I think at a platform, the ability to keep evolving based on how the market is reacting to what you are, you know, experimenting with or what offers you are taking out to the market is something that does make a difference. Speaker 1 I, I think I better understand the strategic partnerships that you talked about much more after this very sort of careful elaboration that you've done. If I can replay this back to you and for the benefit of our community and tell me if I got this right. So essentially an ideal partner for you is someone who brings in international content that's actually in the pay plus one, or at least with a high degree of recency, right? And then there is a partnership approach in terms of, you know, they, they bring the content in. They also make efforts to ensure that it's packaged and distributed and promoted and marketed. Look for the local, local stars, the audience, so that there is enough demand sort of created. That's really where they play the partnership game. So the partnership angle really comes in there where they kind of work with you together to figure out how is this, how's the value unlocked for that content there? What goes into the free window, what aspects go into the paid window? That's kind of what you're really saying about the strategic partnerships? Speaker 2 And so from partnerships perspective, to be honest, this market is actually defined the basic, you know, rules or let's say the, you know, the game plan when it comes to these partnerships on OTT services. Almost every studio or every major content provider has ventured out with a direct D to C service offering has had at some point of time stopped licensing, except for I think Sony, for instance, which was very clear that they would be the global arms dealer. But otherwise, I think people, I mean platforms have tried or content providers have tried, have learned and from that the willingness to change the partnership model or get into strategic partnerships as I has become the, you know, the outcome, which is good for the consumer. At the same time, it is beneficial for the OTT service itself. So again, going back to my partnerships, what I was saying was Geostar is an example, right? So when Geo Hotstar was Hotstar, it was before it did the merger with Geo Yeah, Hotstar was available, some of its Hotstar specials were available, part of the Disney Plus in the region. Again, Disney Hotstar was, you know, they had the there was a merged entity. At that point of time, Disney had stopped licensing its content. So we, we run and operate two of the most popular kids channels in the region. A lot of the kids content was actually, you know, is, is from Disney and some of the other major studies. But Disney did contribute a lot towards the kids content that we have both on the linear channel and on the World Service. Disney's decision to not be not licensed content for the region at one point in time was something that they thought would work because it would drive consumption and viewer shipping to Disney Plus when it is available in the region. But as time evolved and as market feedback and you know, the the numbers started to add up, they realized that, you know, the opportunity is there when finding the right balance. So Disney Plus still exists in the market. But today the partnership also makes sure that we have got the Disney content available on the linear channels and we have some of the Disney content available as part of our watch services for kids. OK. So partnerships again like I said is, is is something that has evolved well in this market and is continuing to evolve. But the good thing is both both stakeholders realize that you know, the consumers are not easy to get retain and you know to maintain these consumers they need to figure out the right mix of how they do it. Speaker 1 Right, right, right. Speaker 2 Uniqueness and having the, you know, having the exclusivity and day and day releases, those are some of the things that do matter. But I think more than that, if you ask my opinion, what matters more is the ability to drive or deliver that content at the right price. Speaker 1 Right. Speaker 2 So, you know, sometimes, you know, a studio deal with some of the top IPS and library content might do better than a pay one deal because we might be able to package it in a way that it actually delivers more value to the consumer at the end of the. Speaker 1 Day you are in the market, you've rooted sort of in the in the in the local sort of culture, practices and audiences. So that that makes a lot of sense. I was actually curious also about the, I mean, the current scheme of things for stars play. Are there certain audiences that are or languages that are underserved? Are there any cultures that are underserved? Again, we've got a large community. I mean, you talked about Turkish, you talked about Indian, you talked about some of the other Asian languages, but how about Portuguese, I mean Brazilian, for instance, Spanish. Are there, are there certain audiences that you want to hear from? What kind of company should reach out to you from a partnership perspective? That'd be great signal to sort of send out and you know to our to our community. So if you look at first we look at the. Speaker 2 Like I was saying, if you divide the market into the core market or the primary markets and the secondary markets and the tertiary markets, I would say that UAE and K sit together from the primary market where we focused. And then the spillover goes into Egypt, maybe a little into the rest of GCC as well. And then of course we've got the North Africa and we've got Levant and we've got some of the other areas within the MENA territory that we've, we try and you know, make an impact on. It's mostly driven by, you know, the the distribution of the different, you know, nationalities of people living there. But more than that is also how much can we deliver without actually, you know, getting or investing a lot into one particular, you know, kind of content that would cost us more. The risk is higher. So if you look at UAE and Saudi, I think the combination that works well is predominantly Arabic speaking with a sizably big expat audience. And then when you look at the rest of the GCC, though the numbers are not that the same, that is still relatively a same kind of a mix, OK. So in absolute volume, OK, maybe you know, UAE and Saudi have got a higher share of expats, but if you look at the overall mix, it's still something that can be addressed across the whole of GCC. You will find a bit of uniformity. Now that works for us. When you further subdivide these. Of course, we know for a fact that the South Asians, especially from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh constitute the largest share of the expats in this region. So having services, having content that they like is probably what is a low hanging fruit at this stage. And like I said at the beginning of the talk, what's missing today was is a platform that kind of caters exclusively to the South Asian audience. So for us, it has become a strategic direction to see if we can actually tap onto the slow hanging fruit at this stage. And we are doing that to an extent. Cricket works for us. It does the acquisitions. And once we get them in, we try and make sure that the partnerships that we have keep them engaged. Now, the beauty about when I say India and when I say South Asian, you know, the number of languages we have in India itself is pretty high. That's right. Speaker 1 But surprisingly, if you divide. Speaker 2 It in UAE the largest demographic speaking people are from the South. Yes. Out of which Malayalam? Speaker 1 Or. Speaker 2 Kerala contributes the largest share, that's right. It kind of makes it easier for us to focus, stay focused on what we want to do. So Malayalam remains on the core of what we are trying to do when it's looking at the South Asian segment. Then of course with Tamil, Hindi, we kind of address a sizable part of the overall base that we want to. And then of course the rest of the other regional languages and Urdu of course does play a major role in it, right. So for us, we were. Speaker 1 We are still. Speaker 2 Focused on tapping that particular segment that is today underserved and for us this is an easy win or at least relatively it works better for us in terms of the investment is lower, but the returns are higher. OK, correct, correct. I can, I can. Speaker 1 See that? Actually, yeah. Then coming back to the wider. Speaker 2 Audience now on the Arabic side, again, if you divide it, of course, it's it's we've, we would say there is Collegi, there is Egyptian. Finding the right mix has always become a challenge and you can't go about doing it because also it requires an extensive very, you know, very deep pockets to be making sure that you know, you have got content that kind of serves A wider audience. So therefore us the strategy is very clear. We know the kind of genres that work on the platform. We have defined the kind of audiences that come to Star's play to watch the content. They, you know, we are also the home of UFC, by the way, and PFL and rugby and Syria. So a lot of sports now when a UFC, you know, a person who wants or likes UFC, comes to the platform, we kind of understand what's the entertainment content as well that goes with it, right, Right on a customer. Speaker 1 That watches the Italian. Speaker 2 League again, you know we know the kind of content that works for that kind of audience so we try and support all the major sports franchises and you know leagues that we have as much as possible with entertainment that goes with it that is the strategy where acquisition is driven by sports to a later extent and the investments in sports brings in the customers and then the entertainment tries and maintains these customers till you know the cycle every spike of an event comes so that we can keep Assessing YouTube's Impact and the Future of Short-Form Content it going. Understood, Understood. No that. Speaker 1 That, that, that makes a lot of sense. And again, as you unpack the audience, the, the answers on the content side kind of flow from there. So the choices you make are are very much a function of the the, the kind of audiences that you have. In my last segment, Sunil, I have a few rapid fire questions for you, right. One aspect of what is you know, relating to YouTube, YouTube has come in for, you know, incredible amount of focus by Netflix leadership the last three quarters, you know, you know, during their investor sort of communication, their financial results. I don't know if you've seen the political sort of interview that came with leadership, you know, couple of weeks ago. They've really come after YouTube. They've appealed to you regulator, they've appealed to policy holder policymakers in in Europe. YouTube is a is a is a sort of big factor in fix his life. I was kind of wondering about, you know, the Middle East. What has been YouTube's influence and growth? Is that something that you consider as competition yet? How do you look at YouTube? See in Middle East? Speaker 2 You know there is technically there is no net totality to be honest, yes. So again, I think the use case is for the consumer. So from at a telco, if you look at it for a telco, as long as there are use cases for consumers to, you know, pay those broadband for those broadband speeds, it makes sense. And YouTube is a great enabler. Yes. So we have seen phenomenal growth for the in the region. YouTube is probably one of the fastest growing OTT services when it comes to streaming content in the region and by far way ahead and that the numbers are pretty big when you look at on a global scale, I think it's almost very much it represents this region as well. OK. So between YouTube and the next player, the gap would be almost as big as what you would see in a global scale. So YouTube has been very successful. And one of the very successful markets is if you look at Egypt, for instance, they have been very successful in MENA, in Saudi, they have been very successful. Anyway, they have a sizable volume of content that is consumed on YouTube. But more or less I think YouTube has established itself as a platform where content is available, but not the premiumness that this market needs. That's right. So again, I think when they have done a few in the other markets, they have not picked up much of sports rights in this region. They have not picked up any of the premium content partnerships in the region. So those are things that are missing and that has still managed, that has kept the other OTT services and other streaming, you know, partnerships going in the region because everyone has learned to well more or less they've learned to coexist in this system where there is premium content and there is free content. Again, in the free content, there is user generated content and at the same time there is professionally curated, you know, premium content that's available outside of a Bay wall kind of a thing. So so again, point taken. Speaker 1 About, you know, the, the growth that that platforms had and the, the distance between them and the next player. You're absolutely right. You know, it's staggering. I just came back from London and you know, the, the whole buzz was relating to the massive influence that YouTube has had on, on that local ecosystem. I was curious about the, the creator economy. Are there lots of new creators that YouTube has spawned? Because again, that's been a big hunting ground for a lot of streamers to then eject those out and bring those into their platforms. I think in Middle East I would. Speaker 2 Probably say that creator economy has, you know, it's now starting to shift towards insta and a lot of these short format content creators are getting more, you know, more active when it comes to content. But if you look at traditionally, if you look at some of the platforms and some of the content creators in the region, quite a lot of them have exploited and managed to get that reach using YouTube as their main source of distribution. But to be more precise, I think the way I see it, a lot of it's shifting towards insta and, you know, shorter formats. OK, got it. Reels. Speaker 1 OK. Another, another sort of rapid fire question at you is about micro series. Has that beginning to pique your interest yet or is it early days? Will you, would you see? I mean, I, I was going through this case study from China ICE, one of the the platforms that has on the the free platform, you know, a lot of micro series and that draws in a lot of the the, the new viewers and new users to the pay side. Are you guys doing anything with micro series yet? We are so we never. Speaker 2 We always have this appetite to try and read the, you know, the, the pulse of the, the, the messages that's coming out of more advanced mature markets, see what's happening worldwide and then see if we can be the early adapters for that in the region. OK, so micro CDs and you know, micro dramas, as they call them, are something that we would want to look at. But for me personally, I think, you know, I, I am of the believer that micro dramas do not cannot, you know, cannot exist successfully with platform that has got mainstream, you know, long form content as its premium offering. It's good. It works well to promote content that is available on the platform. And I think, you know, you know, just streaming providers should find the balance. But I am of the opinion that they should not exist on the same streaming service. Ideally, they should have two different platforms that kind of promote each other. But at the same time, do not, you know, take away that premiumness which OTT service providers otherwise try to achieve. But I can see that globally there are a lot of these major platforms that are drifting about trying to experiment with shorter format versions. But more or less it should be for marketing rather than for the sake of, you know, getting this engagement out. Stars Play's Future: Ecosystems, Integrations, and De-risking Partnerships Understood again, super helpful to. Speaker 1 Just understand where your views are. My last question really Sunil is about outlook, you know, 2026, how's the year sort of shaping up? What are the big initiatives that you're running? Whatever that you can talk about and share with us so. Speaker 2 I think the 26 and going forward the priority is about finding the right echo system where you know it's not going to be easy for OTT services to exist on its own, OK, right. So we will have to first and foremost accept and agree that you know there will be multi subscriptions. Customers are going to have their own preferences. The global brands are here to stay and you need to find or or for us to survive or for us to thrive in this region, We need to find the right blend of partnerships that will allow us to make sure that, you know, we are associated with premiumness with, you know, content that is very much unique and not available on the, you know, on the global platforms. That said, I think more than the one side of a time is the partnerships, but more than that I think is also the the right level of integrations with, you know, the telcos and other distribution means that allows us to actually give the consumers more value. Now you know it, it doesn't have to always be be to be where, you know, you have the wholesale content available as part of a telco service. No, it could be being a part of, you know, a super app that the telco develops, being a part of a plan where the customers get, you know, a choice between 1-2 and three services. And then of course, when you are to get to the customer, it is probably the challenge that the OTT service will have to do is to make sure that the customer activates and then consumes the content. But one part of it is getting to the customer. That remains the challenge and that remains the focus of what we would want to do in 26 and going forward, but that's one part of it. I think also E and being a part of, you know, being the parent company and investing heavily into stars play, the opportunity is that the backing is there, which gives us the assurance that, you know, the strategy that we are building around sports, around entertainment can further be developed. And you know, with partners like ADMM coming in and giving us, you know, giving us all the content made available on the platform exclusively gives us the confidence that with these kind of partnerships, we will be able to make sure that we are able to define the product in a way that it appeals to a wider audience. But the investment remains something that is sustainable. And I think what we are trying to do is also we are trying to get away from extensive licensing models where you know, the the risk is much higher and it could usually be a hit and run, a hit and risk kind of a thing. So it's very tricky there. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to de risk ourselves with more, more of partnerships than direct licensing. Fascinating, Fascinating. Speaker 1 You know, something that the, the, the deep pieces of strategic bundling and partnerships, you know, comes so many different ways in, in, in our conversation. I mean, I, I, I have to say that as between we are all about partnerships within the supply chain and you know, this thing to you actually, you know, put light on so many aspects of, you know, potential partnerships as well as partnerships that you're already executing on, on the content side, on the Bunning side, as well as the sole unpacking the value from a monetization perspective between D board, D board and S board. So, you know, this has been a very, very exciting conversation. Thank you so much for talking to the Vetrina community as freely as you know. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.