Free for viewers, streaming service Jungo+ launches for select Indian users

Unlike usual streaming services, Jungo+ is a new entrant in the space delivering advertisement supported over-the-top (OTT) streaming television and on-demand content, which will be free for viewers.

Jungo+ is available through digital first channels, video on demand content platforms like YouTube and its own app which is available on both Android and Apple devices.

The platform, unlike other streaming services, is not targeting a mass audience, but plans to cater to people with interests in niche areas it calls passion and ethnocentric interests like K-Pop (Korean popular music), health and wellness, esports, and mixed martial arts . Because it is ad supported, it is free for the viewer who can get access to a plethora of Hollywood movies as well.

“The company is at a point where we are maturing our technology, and will be able to scale up, we also have the content we believe will be popular with the segment we’re targeting. In India, with OTT growing so quickly, streaming getting much better, the growing and expanding smart TV market, we believe this is the right time to enter the market,” said George Chung, CEO at Jungo+.

The platform is going to be free for viewers as it is supported by programmatic or dynamic advertising. Programmatic advertising is a system that automates the processes and transactions involved with purchasing and dynamically placing ads on websites or apps. Ads are placed through an auction system that manages transactions between the site or app publisher and the advertiser. Through automated processes, advertisers bid for the impression (a single view of an ad by a single individual) based on its perceived value, according to established criteria.

Jungo+ has partnered with Verizon Media SSP, Google Ad Manager 360 Premium and Spot X for this advertising.

The firm, interestingly, isn’t looking at Bollywood content. It has a bouquet of Hollywood films, all available at no cost to the viewer, and is on the lookout for Indian local language content which does well in other geographies too. For example, Bengali and South Indian content has a market in the US, Punjabi content in Canada and old Hindi movies also do well with the expatriate community in the US.

However, Indian OTT platforms have recently come under new rules under which there will be increased regulation on the content they host.

“We’re very aware of what’s going on in India (regulation wise),” said Chung. “We’re approaching it from doing things with absolute compliance. We enter a geography with the respect accorded to a culture…Cultural acceptance is the reason we don’t provide user generated content, we only work with professional content creators…Jungo+ has highly professional, highly experienced content, production, technical staff that is aware of what’s going on in the country,” he said. Business-standard