Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries is expected to retain Disney+ Hotstar as the sole streaming platform following the merger of Star India and Viacom18. According to recent reports, Reliance Industries Ltd. will keep Disney+ Hotstar as the primary streaming service after the merger of Star India and Viacom18.
Reliance has decided that once the merger is finalised, Disney+ Hotstar will take over Jio Cinema, becoming the primary streaming platform for the combined entity, according to ETT news. RIL’s annual report states that JioCinema served an average of 225 million monthly users. In comparison, Sensor Tower reported that Disney+ Hotstar had 333 million monthly active users in Q4 2023. Additionally, Disney+ Hotstar has experienced a significant decline in its paid subscribers in recent times.
Combined, Jio Cinema and Disney+ Hotstar, the popular platform for Hindi movies, offer a total of 200,000 hours of content, including premium broadcast material from Star and Viacom18’s channels. Once the merger is finalised, all sports-related streaming content, including the IPL, will be available on Disney+ Hotstar. It indicates that Reliance does not plan to shut down Disney+ Hotstar. Reports further suggested that Reliance made this decision of merger because Disney+ Hotstar has superior back-end technology for managing live content and delivering targeted ads. However, there is still some uncertainty regarding how the integration will unfold, particularly in terms of whether the entertainment content will be accessible through one app or remain on two separate platforms.
