We missed this earlier: ALTBalaji, the digital content application from Balaji Telefilms is offering its digital content portfolio on the Airtel's Airtel TV app. The shows on offer include "Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat, Haq, One Upon a Time in Mumbai and Lootera". Airtel now claims to offer content from over 350+ live TV channels, over 10,00 movies and shows. The Airtel TV app is free for Airtel Postpaid and prepaid customers till June 2018. A few points to note: MediaNama's take 1. Not the first such deal, but noteworthy: This content distribution deal is interesting because it's an instance of Balaji actually licensing its content to a third-party, instead of selling its own bundle (the ALT Balaji app) to drive subscription. This isn't the first such deal: the first was with Reliance Jio, in January 2018, for Jio Cinema (movies) and Jio TV (shows). That deal was understandable: Reliance Jio's parent owns 26% in ALT Balaji's parent company, Balaji Telefilms; that there was going to be content shared by ALT Balaji with Jio was a given. But the Airtel deal is interesting because Jio competes Airtel. It's a bit surprising that Jio actually let this deal happen. 2. A change of approach: One of the questions we would have asked Ekta Kapoor (we had requested an interview when the service launched) was the initial decision to not syndicate content when there was great demand from platforms for original content. Balaji, as we pointed out subsequently, was trying to build a…
