Walt Disney to move Hotstar content to Hulu, ESPN+ in US

By Daisy On Sep 1, 2021

Bengaluru: Walt Disney Co. said on Tuesday that content from its streaming service Hotstar–home to the Indian Premier League cricket tournament and original shows like ‘Aarya’–will migrate to its ESPN++ and Hulu streaming platforms in the United States.

Disney, which has 174 million paying customers across its four streaming services, is looking to slowly consolidate its content into a Disney Bundle, which includes ESPN+, Hulu, Disney+ and more than 100,000 movies, TV episodes as well as sports events.

Sports content from Hotstar will move to ESPN+, and Hotstar movies as well as TV shows will migrate to Hulu, which is home to series like ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.

A Hotstar annual subscription costs $49.99 per year, while the Disney Bundle, which starts at $13.99 per month, will cost subscribers at least $167.88 for a year.

Hotstar users in the US will receive a redemption code to avail an offer to shift their subscriptions to the entire Disney bundle, at no cost.

IPL comes to ESPN+

ALSO READ TECH NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY

BillDesk cofounder on Prosus deal; pre-IPO boost for Paytm

BillDesk, the Indian fintech firm that predates the word ‘fintech’, will soon be acquired by global tech investor Prosus in a $4.7 billion all-cash deal. MN Srinivasu, one of the firm’s cofounders, told us why BillDesk said yes to Prosus

Read Now

Hotstar is popular in India as it streams Bollywood movies, local TV shows and cricket tournaments.

In the first half of 2021, the Hotstar mobile app had only about 0.04% market share of installs among the top 100 streaming services in the US, according to data analytics firm Sensor Tower. In cricket-crazy India, however, it had a 29% market share of all new downloads among the top 100 mobile streaming video on demand apps.

The Indian Premier League (IPL), which has an estimated brand value of $6.8 billion, is the richest Twenty20 league and attracts many of the best players from around the world.

The league’s fourteenth season
was suspended on May 4 with 31 matches left to play after several players and backroom staff tested positive for Covid-19 amid a devastating second wave of infections in India. The remaining matches will stream on ESPN+ in the US when the tournament resumes from Sept. 19.

Reuters’ Subrat Patnaik and Juby Babu in Bengaluru contributed to this story.

For all the latest Technology News Click Here

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! TechAI is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.