Disney+ Hotstar content may merge into JioCinema after RIL-Disney deal to create India's largest streaming service

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is reportedly considering a major change in its streaming services. After the planned merger with Star India’s Disney+ Hotstar, RIL might focus on having just one streaming platform: JioCinema, according to a report by The Economic Times. Even though Disney+ Hotstar has a lot more users right now, RIL is reportedly planning to combine its content with JioCinema to create a single, stronger platform.

Disney+ Hotstar, which is owned by Walt Disney’s Star India, is currently one of India’s top streaming services with over 500 million downloads on Google Play Store. On the other hand, JioCinema, which is owned by Viacom18 (controlled by RIL), has over 100 million downloads. Despite the difference, RIL believes that running two separate platforms would be more expensive and less efficient. By merging them, RIL could build a more powerful streaming service that could compete with big players like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video.

This move comes after RIL and Walt Disney signed deals earlier this year to merge Star India and Viacom18, creating a media giant valued at about $8.5 billion. This new company would have over 100 TV channels and two streaming services, but RIL seems to prefer having just one.

The merger is still waiting for approval from regulators like the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). To address concerns about becoming too dominant in the market, RIL is also willing to shut down some TV channels in Hindi and regional markets.

RIL’s annual report for 2023 showed that JioCinema had an average of 225 million users each month. Meanwhile, Disney+ Hotstar had 333 million active users in the last quarter of 2023. However, Disney+ Hotstar has lost some of its paid subscribers, dropping from 61 million at its peak to 35.5 million as of June. This decline was partly due to losing the rights to popular content like the Indian Premier League (IPL) and HBO shows.

Despite this, JioCinema has been growing fast, especially after it got the digital rights to the IPL, which led to record-breaking viewership on the platform. RIL’s chairman Mukesh Ambani highlighted this success, saying that the IPL on JioCinema showed the platform’s ability to attract large audiences quickly.

If the content from Disney+ Hotstar is combined with JioCinema, the latter could become the largest streaming service in India, offering over 125,000 hours of entertainment, sports, and Hollywood content. The new platform would also include important sports rights, like the IPL, and content from big studios like Disney, HBO, NBCUniversal, and Paramount Global.

RIL has already made similar moves in the past, like merging other platforms such as Voot into JioCinema. Recently, JioCinema was transferred to Viacom18 after a court-approved deal that also involved a ₹15,145 crore investment from RIL and Bodhi Tree Systems into Viacom18.