American streaming platform Disney is preparing to sell its television and streaming business in India. According to Bloomberg report, the company is in talks with Gautam Adani, Sun TV owner Kalanithi Maran and some private equity firms.
The report states that Disney may sell only some of its operations or both operations and assets in this deal. At present this deal is in its initial stage. It is not known whether this will proceed or not. No information has been given by the company regarding this either.
Disney is getting competition after Reliance entered this field. In the streaming industry, Reliance's Jio Cinema has made this market more tough. Ambani's company Jio Cinema telecasts the Indian Premier League (IPL) for free on its platform.
Earlier the broadcasting rights of IPL were with Disney, for which it used to charge subscription fees. Declaring its results for the year ending March 2022, Disney had said that it suffered a loss of Rs 345 crore on revenue of Rs 3,245 crore from streaming operations in India.
Taking a leaf out of JioCinema’s book, Disney+ Hotstar decided to stream cricket tournaments, the Asia Cup and the World Cup, for free for mobile users.
While the ongoing ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup seemed like the last weapon in Disney’s arsenal in the ongoing OTT war in India, the company now seems to have made up its mind to sell the complete or a part of its India business, including Disney+ Hostar.
Recently, the company also spoke with the executives of Reliance to sell off its entire India operations.
