Reliance JioCinema to stream over 1000 episodes, 20 movies of Pokemon series after new deal

Reliance’s entertainment division in India has partnered with The Pokemon Company. This partnership will allow Reliance to broadcast Pokemon’s children’s shows and movies on its platform, JioCinema. This is part of Reliance’s strategy to enhance its content and compete with other streaming services like Walt Disney Co.  JioCinema will be airing a brand-new season unveiled every Thursday, starting on 16 November, with Season 12.

The agreement makes JioCinema the exclusive platform in India for over 1,000 episodes and about 20 movies of the Pokemon series. The content will be part will be part of Reliance JioCinema's new foray into Kids entertainment with a dedicated ‘Kids and Family’ offering.

A JioCinema spokesperson said, “At JioCinema, we are deeply committed to building a one-stop destination for all things entertainment. We are invested in understanding Indian audiences and their preferences and continue to evolve as the preferred source for all their entertainment needs. Our newly added Kids and Family category will unlock access to millions of families across India and enrich family consumption. With the best content from India and around the world, available in multiple languages, we aim to be inclusive and an enabler of wider consumption with fewer barriers’’.

To make the shows and movies more appealing to the Indian audience, they will be dubbed in three Indian languages. Pokemon is a globally popular franchise that includes trading cards, games, TV shows, and movies. Neither Viacom18, or Nintendo, the company that owns The Pokemon Company made the deal public via official channels.

Ambani is focusing on adding child-centric content to expand in the Indian streaming market, which is estimated to be worth $7 billion by 2027 according to Media Partners Asia. JioCinema’s competitors include Netflix and Amazon, but Ambani’s recent focus has been on competing with Disney’s Hotstar app, which also offers free streaming of cricket matches.

JioCinema plans to add approximately 3,000 hours of children’s content, including movies and shows from Entertainment One, Animaccord, Cartoon Network Studios, and DreamWorks. This content will be added through Viacom18’s existing content deals or through integration with its other streaming app, Voot Kids, which has been shut down. Some Pokemon content was previously available on Voot, but the new deal with JioCinema represents a much larger partnership.

In May, NBCUniversal announced a multi-year partnership with JioCinema, which includes “kids and family programming” and DreamWorks content. Entertainment One, Animaccord, and Cartoon Network Studios did not comment on this. In April, Viacom18 made a deal with Warner Bros Discovery Inc. to add more Hollywood and international content to JioCinema, including popular series like “Succession” and “Game of Thrones”.

Also read: Former Google executive Kiran Mani likely to join Mukesh Ambani's JioCinema

Also read: What a Reliance-Disney India deal could mean: JioCinema-Disney+ Hotstar combine & 100+ TV channels