Updated at October 7, 2017:
Reliance Jio was initially going to offer Jio subscribers with free premium access to Hotstar contents. But it seems, that won’t be the case anymore.
Jio subscriber can watch 19 Star TV Network channels including the Star Sports channels live via Hotstar app for free (that’s without a premium subscription). For watching other premium content on Hotstar you may need to subscribe to their monthly plan, which starts at Rs 199.
Our original story from Saturday, October 7, 2017, follows:
As the speed of internet gets ten-fold and when it becomes more and more affordable, then you need lots and lots of content to consume. That’s the case of high-speed 4G users, especially the users under Reliance Jio 4G preview offer.
The upcoming Indian telecom operator Reliance Jio has partnered with Star India to offer free premium membership to popular video streaming service Hotstar via JioTV. This will bring a wide catalogue of Star TV channels along with exclusive Americal TV shows and movies for Jio customers.
The Star India owned Hotstar is India’s largest premium streaming platform. It offers both free and premium video contents including 50,000 hours of TV content and movies across 8 languages, and every major sport covered live. Priced at Rs 199 per month Hotstar premium subscription brings all the exclusive and latest American TV Shows like ‘Game of Thrones’ and movies minutes after it been aired on America.
For those who are new to JioTV, the live streaming service/app offers access to more than 300 TV channels including 42 HD channels across languages and genres. One can live-stream TV channels and watch episodes of TV shows, aired in the past 7 days.
Through this partnership, Reliance Jio customers subscribed to JioTV service will get direct free access to Hotstar premium membership. Which in turn allows Jio customers to access all the Star TV channels, other exclusive American TV Shows, and movies.
How to activate Hotstar via JioTV
- Open up JioTV app and tap on any Star TV channel or program.
- You will be then redirected to Google Play store/ iTunes to download the latest Hotstar app.
- If you are an existing user then you are provided with an option to upgrade or reinstall the Hotstar app.
- On upgrading, you will ask to connect with your Jio account.
- Once connected you can use either the JioTV app or Hotstar app to watch Star TV channels and other TV shows. (clicking Star TV channels on JioTV app will automatically open up in Hotstar).
- You can also use the Hotstar directly to watch all other premium TV shows and movies.
As said earlier you will need a JioTV membership, which probably will only available after the commercial launch of Reliance Jio. The current Reliance Jio Preview users are on “Jio Play-unlimited-90 Days” plan which is sort of free plan. So probably Jio will come up with a paid membership plan for JioTV after the commercial launch.
On the way, if you are buying an LYF android smartphone or got a Samsung smartphone, then you can try out the Reliance Jio 4G. Which also comes with three months Jio 4G preview offer that offers three months of unlimited 4G LTE data usage, voice calls (VoLTE) and message (SMS).
With this partnership, Jio is a ramping up its content offering ahead of its commercial launch. Thus users coming to its network have enough reason to spend the money on.