Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Set to Merge JioCinema into Disney+ Hotstar

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (RIL) is set to keep Disney+ Hotstar as the sole streaming platform following the merger of Star India and Viacom18.

JioCinema will be integrated into Disney+ Hotstar, making it the main streaming service for the new combined entity.

RIL looked at different streaming options, including merging Disney+ Hotstar, which is owned by Walt Disney's Star India, with JioCinema.

They decided to keep Disney+ Hotstar because it has better technology.

In August, RIL, which will manage the new Star-Viacom18 company, wanted to combine JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar into one platform. Disney+ Hotstar has over 500 million downloads, while JioCinema has 100 million downloads.

In February, RIL and Walt Disney agreed to merge Star and Viacom18, creating a big media company worth $8.5 billion.

This company will have over 100 channels and two streaming services.

According to RIL's annual report, JioCinema had about 225 million users each month, while Disney+ Hotstar had 333 million active users in the last quarter of 2023.

However, Disney+ Hotstar has lost a lot of paid subscribers.

As of June, it had 35.5 million paying customers, down from 61 million when it had popular shows like the Indian Premier League (IPL) and HBO series.

Before this, Viacom18 combined its different streaming services, called Voot, into JioCinema.

They used to have three platforms: Voot, Voot Select, and Voot Kids.