Disney, the global entertainment conglomerate that operates a variety of streaming platforms, suffered a 2% contraction in its total subscriber base in the quarter ending in March this year. The decline is largely attributed to one specific streaming service: Hotstar.
Disney+ platform Hotstar, which caters to viewers in India and Southeast Asia, lost 4.6 million subscribers during the said quarter. This is the second consecutive quarter that the number of subscribers to the platform has fallen. Since October last year, Hotstar’s total subscriber loss has reached 8.4 million, according to Disney’s earnings reports. Hotstar, which counts India as its largest market, still has around 53 million subscribers.
The problems for Disney go beyond subscriber attrition. The company is also seeing a reduction in revenue for those who keep their subscriptions to the streaming service. Hotstar’s average revenue per subscriber fell from 74 cents to 59 cents in the quarter ended March.
Once a prized asset in Disney’s takeover of Fox, Hotstar is struggling to find ways to keep its subscriber base happy. The Indian streaming platform attracted customers by offering live streaming of cricket matches, especially the local IPL tournament. However, Disney was outbid for this season’s IPL digital rights by Viacom18, a company backed by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries. To aggressively win over customers, JioCinema is streaming this year’s IPL for free in India.
“The lower impressions were attributed to the decline in average viewership across our sports and non-sports channels. The decline in our sports channels was primarily due to cricket programming, which reflected the broadcast of fewer matches from the Indian Premier League (IPL) in the current quarter compared to the prior year quarter as the 2023 IPL season started approximately one week later than the 2022 season,” Disney said in its report of win wednesday
Hotstar’s prospects remain bleak as the streaming service grapples with the recent termination of its licensing deal with HBO. The entertainment titan quickly pulled its entire catalog from the Indian platform, with Viacom18 securing rights from HBO and additional content from Warner Bros.
Industry analysts expect Hotstar’s subscriber loss to increase, potentially reaching an additional 7 million by the end of the year.
Disney’s recent acquisition of the hotstar streaming service has seen an immense drop in subscribers which amounts to 8.4 million in total. Disney’s hotstar which was the dominant streaming service in India has lost its numero uno position seemingly overnight. This has been due to the rise of Ambani’s JioCinema, a streaming service funded by the leading company of India, Reliance Industries, helmed by Mukesh Ambani.
JioCinema despite only being in the market for a few months has already gained more subscribers than Disney’s Hotstar and is continuing to grow its devoted fan base.
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