MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Company has taken a strategic call to phase out its Hotstar streaming service in North America — which is essentially targeted at audiences of South Asian descent.
The plan, first reported by Variety, which is to be completed by end-2022, is to transfer the sports programming on Hotstar to ESPN+ (which will pick up all of Hotstar’s US cricket rights), while the streamer’s movies and TV series will be migrated to Hulu.
Disney, which has over 174 million subscribers combined across four of its streaming services, Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu, and Hotstar, and is hoping Hotstar customers in the US will switch over to the Disney Bundle.
It bears noting that Hotstar’s biggest pull among South Asians in the States is for its live cricket rights (IPL, ICC and BCCI cricket) so a lot is riding on this demographic “making the switch”.
“The move from Hotstar, a premium brand for South Asian content, to ESPN Plus and Hulu in the U.S. expands upon the rich and diverse catalog of live events and stories delivered across the Disney Bundle and provides a platform for South Asian content to reach broader audiences,” the House of Mouse said in a statement.
There is a catch though. South Asians are known to be “extremely price conscious” and it remains to be seen how they take to Disney’s new bundle plan, which will cost $13.99 per month, and at least $167.88 for a year. More so when Hotstar’s annual subscription costs were $49.99 per year.
