Disney joins forces with India’s Reliance Industries to create massive new streaming platform
Disney joins forces with India’s Reliance Industries to create massive new streaming platform
Disney announced this week that it’s joining forces with India’s largest private sector company, Reliance Industries, to create a TV and digital streaming platform that will serve up everything from live sports — notably cricket — to Disney films to TV dramas. It’s a joint venture worth $8.5 billion, with an audience of more than 750 million viewers.
There’s this saying in India, said Geetha Ranganathan, a media analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence: “The first thing that Indians care about is cricket, then it’s religion, and then it’s Bollywood.”
At least two of the three — cricket and Bollywood — will be available on this new platform.
Disney has had a presence in India for years, Ranganathan said, but lost cricket streaming rights to Reliance a few years back. That meant losing a bunch of customers, while having to keep subscription fees low.
“You know, it is a very price-sensitive market, so they obviously needed to keep that price point pretty compelling, but they were losing money,” Ranganathan said.
This joint venture is a strategic move from Disney in the world’s most populous country, she said. It’s at a time when more and more people in India are getting access to broadband too.
“They’ve got an expanding middle class,” said John Blevins, a professor at Cornell and a tech strategy consultant. “And when you think of streaming services, they’re getting infrastructure now that’s enabling that.”
Plus, cricket games are long, Blevins added — which means plenty of opportunities for advertising.
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