Reliance to retain Disney+ Hotstar as sole streaming platform for merged entity

Reliance Industries is expected to retain Disney+ Hotstar as the only streaming platform following the merger of Star India and Viacom18, sources familiar with the matter told The Economic Times (ET).

JioCinema will merge into Disney+ Hotstar, positioning it as the central streaming platform for the combined entity, sources added.

RIL had explored various strategies for the streaming business. At one stage, it considered integrating Disney+ Hotstar into JioCinema, and there were discussions about running two separate platforms—one for sports and another for entertainment.

"However, Reliance's leadership opted to keep Disney+ Hotstar due to its superior tech infrastructure," a source aware of the discussions said.

ET first reported on August 20 that Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which will control the merged Star-Viacom18 entity, is inclined to consolidate JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar into a single OTT platform.

Disney+ Hotstar, the streaming service owned by Walt Disney's Star India, has over 500 million downloads on the Google Play Store, compared to JioCinema's 100 million downloads, which is owned by RIL-controlled Viacom18.

In February, RIL and Walt Disney signed agreements to merge Star and Viacom18, creating an $8.5 billion media powerhouse with over 100 channels and two streaming platforms.

According to RIL’s annual report, JioCinema reached an average of 225 million monthly users. In contrast, Disney+ Hotstar had 333 million monthly active users in Q4 2023, according to Sensor Tower.

As of June, Disney+ Hotstar had 35.5 million paid subscribers, significantly down from its peak of 61 million when it offered content like the Indian Premier League (IPL) and HBO.

Earlier, Viacom18, controlled by RIL, had merged its various OTT platforms under the Voot brand into JioCinema. Viacom18 had previously operated three platforms: Voot, Voot Select, and Voot Kids.