Two widely used video streaming apps in India, Hotstar and Jiocinema, have been integrated into Jiohotstar.
Jiostar, a joint venture between Reliance-owned VIACOM18 and Star India, said on Friday it integrated Jiocinema’s vast content library into an improved version of Disney’s Hotstar platform.
Live is live early in the local India, with merged apps including hundreds of thousands of hours of local content, over 100 TV channels, Disney, Warner Bros., HBO, NBCUniversal, and Paramant movies and TV shows will appear. . Jiohotstar aims to reach more than 500 million users in the country.
Jiohotstar, which offers content in 19 languages and creates 30,000 hours of TV shows per year, starts at 3 months (advertising support) 149 (advertising support), and 299 ($3.45) per month for an ad-free experience I have a subscription plan starting at £149 ($1.71). The ad-free layer allows four screens to be displayed at once at the same time, but the cheapest ad support model is limited to one screen.
The merger followed the $8.5 billion merger of Reliance with Walt Disney’s Indian assets last year, creating a joint venture that manages around 85% of the Indian streaming market and half of its television audience.
“Entertainment is no longer a privilege, but it’s a shared experience for everyone,” said Kiran Mani, Jiostar’s digital chief executive. The group said existing Jiocinema subscribers will migrate to Jiohotstar when their current subscription expires.
The merger brings India’s most valuable sports rights on one platform, including cricket properties such as the Indian Premier League and the International Cricket Council Tournament, in addition to the Football Premier League and the FIFA World Cup.
Jiocinema apps will be phased out after existing customer subscriptions expire. Jiocinema subscribers will be able to “seamlessly” move to set up Jiohotstar subscriptions, the company told TechCrunch.
This integration reflects the challenges foreign media groups face in price-sensitive markets in India. Netflix and Amazon Prime are struggling to increase their paid subscriptions despite their heavily invested in local content.
Amazon, which acquired MX Player last year, has been actively expanding its new video streaming app with over 100 original shows and movies this year. According to Sensor Tower, MX Player was the third most popular video streaming app in December.