Big triumphs for billionaire Ambani in technology and cricket thanks to a Disney partnership

Big triumphs for billionaire Ambani in technology and cricket thanks to a Disney partnership

FILE PHOTO: This illustration, taken on December 15, 2023, shows the logos of Disney and Reliance. Dado Ruvic/REUTERS/Illustration/File Photo

BENGALURU: With streaming tech capabilities and rich cricket rights, a Disney-Reliance assets combination in India will create a media juggernaut considerably greater than all its rivals, boosting billionaire Mukesh Ambani's entertainment ambitions.

Disney and Reliance valued their combined TV and streaming asset business at $8.5 billion on Wednesday. Disney will hold 37% of the combined company, with Ambani's Reliance and its affiliates owning over 63%.

With 120 channels and two streaming platforms, the combined organization will be the leading TV player in India. Zee Entertainment, a domestic company, would come in second with 50 TV channels in the country's burgeoning $28 billion media and entertainment business.

With 38 million paying customers, Disney's Hotstar is the biggest streaming service in India. Industry observers believe that Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have 20 million and 6.5 million paid customers in India, respectively. However, the companies do not provide their exact figures.

JioCinema from Reliance is primarily free and does not reveal user counts; a premium subscription service was introduced only last year.

Prior to the merger, Reliance actively marketed JioCinema, which gained popularity right away thanks to its free cricket streaming offers, while its rivalry with Disney expanded. However, social media users were also upset with it for frequent technological hiccups.

Historically, the media sector in India has made minimal investments in technological innovation. Hotstar's technological advancements in streaming and cloud computing will benefit Reliance, according to Shashi Shekhar Vempati, the former CEO of Prasar Bharati, an Indian state-run broadcaster.

In many technical areas, JioCinema lags behind Hotstar. It is more sophisticated at flawlessly displaying live video to a very large number of concurrent viewers and is better at delivering intelligent viewing recommendations based on a user's watching history," he continued.

Disney's streaming service in India has over the years mastered a so-called server side ad insertion technology that allows them to monetize and target users on a large scale with ads during live content streaming, according to a Disney source who spoke to Reuters without revealing their identity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

The source continued, "Disney uses about 55,000 distinct metric combinations—like age, location, or more—to target users with ads. This is all battle."tested, and this benefits Reliance."

Disney struggled in India for years, particularly with its streaming business, which was the largest but could not turn a profit. As a result, the Disney-Reliance partnership was made.

Together, Reliance and Disney announced on Wednesday that they would "offer a compelling, accessible and novel digital-focused entertainment experience." After receiving all necessary regulatory clearances, the purchase is anticipated to finalize later this year or in early 2025.