“The long-term winner will be free, ad-supported films” - Jaman.com Founder & CEO - Gaurav Dhillon

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (Rate this article)
Loading ... Loading ...

Email It!

Just yesterday we blogged about the tie up between NDTV Lumiere and Jaman.com. Regarding the same news story we caught up with Gaurav Dhillon the founder and CEO of Jaman.com and quizzed him about the tie up and Jaman.com’s India strategy and the future of online video. But before we go to the interview here is a short profile of Gaurav Dhillon: Current founder and CEO of Jaman: Prior to founding Jaman, Dhillon served as the chief executive officer for Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA), a Silicon Valley company that he led from a startup idea in 1992 to a leading software enterprise with customers and operations around the globe and more than a billion dollars in cumulative revenue. Dhillon led Informatica through its initial launch, an IPO in 1999, its expansion into Europe and Asia, and through the establishment of alliances with major technology and consulting companies by the time he left in 2004.

Gaurav Dhillon CEO Jaman

Here is the interview:

Q1) What is the objective behind the tie up with NDTV Lumiere i.e. Who are you targetting with their content?

NDTV Lumiere is well respected name and we are dedicated to aggressively growing the Jaman library with titles from the world’s leading distributors and studios.  (In May, we announced a partnership with Eros International to put a number of their titles online).  With this deal in particular, we are expanding the title collection for our audience in South Asia, which is our largest community of film fans on Jaman.

Q2) Your thoughts on Online Video Penetration, Its monetization and its future? (Please also give an India Perspective)

We are excited about India’s dynamic broadband growth, which spurs demand for online entertainment.  Jaman offers viewers the option of downloading films for rental or purchase, or viewing them streaming, free, ad-supported.  We believe the long-term winner will be free, ad-supported films.

Q3) Does Jaman.com have an India Strategy?

We continue to see terrific enthusiasm for Jaman in India and are growing our library and delivering a quality technology platform to delight users in the region.


WATBlog Analysis: Though Gaurav may be optimistic about the future monetization model through ads eMarketer’s recent report on online ad revenue seems pessimistic. Infact they seemed to have corrected their projection for total video ad revenue from $1.4 billion for 08-09 which it predicted in february to 505 Million $ in its latest report! That makes it a correction of over 64%! Internationally there has been more than 8 billion that has been pumped into the online video segment and this news certainly wont be music to the investors ears.


Related Posts

About the Author

Rajiv Dingra

Rajiv is a prolific blogger who has over 1000 blog posts to his credit at WATBlog. The Founder & CEO of WATMedia our parent company and the Chief Blogger at WATBlog, he has been the driving force of the WAT Evolution. Rajiv does some excellent analysis of the digital media industry in India and often brings out deep insights with his inimitable style of interviewing. Just mail rajiv|at|watblog|dot|com and it will reach him..

Leave a Comment and Follow the replies through Post Comment Feed

You can use these XHTML tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <strong>