Walt Disney co’s expected $75 billion deal with Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. will change a lot of things in Indian media industry including the cricket rights and local-language TV shows. After this deal, Disney would be able to distribute its programming on Star India along with the popular streaming service- Hotstar.
This bold step has been taken by Disney because ESPN is losing subscribers as the audience is migrating from traditional television services to digital viewing. India is currently the 2nd-largest subscription TV market in Asia, with 154 million households in 2016 which is expected to cross 167 million in 2021.
“It is an amazing opportunity to get into the best developing market in the world,” MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson said, “but it is highly competitive.” Big names like Netflix Inc are providing streaming service in India for almost two years now and Prime Video by Amazon is also trying to capture Indian users from a year. In all the competition Star India is ruling the market. Fox expects Star India to earn $500 million before interest, in 2018, rising to $1 billion in 2020.
Owning Star India will give Disney a big advantage over other companies as it will be very difficult for any content provider to get the sports rights and make multiple languages shows like Hotstar.
“The deal also could allow Disney to boost its film business in India, where the vast majority of movies are local Bollywood releases”, said Prem Parameswaran, chief executive of North America for Eros International. “They could now have the ability to create films and offer them exclusively to their viewers, rather than through the box office,” he added.
