The merger of the media assets of Reliance, its portfolio Viacom18 and Disney Star will create an entity that pretty much houses all the major sports properties that matter in the Indian market.
This poses significant challenges to Culver Max Entertainment (aka Sony Pictures Networks India), the erstwhile third wheel in the Indian sports broadcast arena, which has now been reduced to just another player in the space.
The merger, which is scheduled to complete by March of 2025, will have exclusive digital and broadcast rights to virtually all of the key sporting events that matter to the Indian consumer at large – including the next four years of the Indian Premier League, all flagship ICC events, domestic Indian cricket, FIFA World Cup, Premier League, and Wimbledon among the tennis Grand Slams.
Cricket match streaming has been the prime driver of new users for streaming platforms in India. By securing numerous cricket rights, Disney and Reliance have left rival services with limited content options to attract fans.
“The combined new entity captures both digital and TV rights of key cricket sporting events in India, like IPL and ICC matches,” Tech Crunch quotes Morgan Stanley analysts as having written in a note on Thursday.
“The 2023-27 IPL broadcasting now sit under the JV – Viacom 18 has digital streaming rights (won for $2.9bn) while Star has TV broadcasting rights (secured for $2.8bn). In IPL 2023, JioCinema streamed matches free for all users, which impacted Hotstar’s earnings. However, with the JV structure, we could see significantly better profitability,” the Morgan Stanley note further stated.
Bernstein analysts estimated that the combined operations of Disney’s Hotstar and JioCinema will have a market leadership within the India OTT market with about 85% monthly active OTT user base.
Star, part of Disney’s India property, commands 41% of the broadcast market in India. Combined with about 8% of the TV market that Viacom18 assumes in India, the merged operations – which will feature some 120 TV channels – will command about 49% of the broadcasting market.
The two firms will command 56% of the Hindi-speaking TV audience in the country, according to an analysis by Bank of America analysts.
In a release issued Wednesday, Disney and Reliance said the JV will bring together media assets across sports (e.g. Star Sports and Sports18) and entertainment (e.g. Colors, StarPlus, StarGOLD) and including access to highly anticipated events across television and digital platforms through JioCinema and Hotstar.
The JV will have over 750 million viewers across India and will also cater to the diaspora across the world, the release further stated.
