You're right.
Hotstar is just a drag on balance sheet without IPL. They never made profit and also lost the opportunity to build a good slate of ongoing shows like SonyLIV or Prime Video.
Now atleast i hope after seeing the above charts members will agree with statements i made few months back
Just to add, might be that Disney/Star would not have been okay with monetary demand put forward by HBO / Warmer Media to sell rights of HBO Original content to them. As such Disney/Star would have just opted for Digital/OTT rights if pricing was alright for them, I do not see TV rights of these...
dreamdth.com
Also those saying OTT platform cannot succeed without cricket then MX Player is the clear example wherein it attracts large number of viewers both for free content and its subscription plans.
In India Freemium subscription model is the correct one to adopt. Majority People will not be willing to pay high amount for any content and minute % which does is not enough for a platform to recover cost incurred in producing or acqiiring content . This is why u see now OTT platforms r providing lot of content for free while ads help earn revenue,,even subscription plan costs have been kept low (which further will see downward revision) and ads again get large part of revenue.
In India i am certain Disney will not exit TV business, at most it will search for JV partner for its sports tv channels as these require high investment while recovering the expenses or earning profit is a very difficult task...above all India Cricket sports properties r the ones which get max viewership hence broadcasters have to acquire these rights in order to make the channels successful.
Disney-Stae needs to find a way to balance out investments made on both linear and digital mediums in a way that there is good revenue earned from both mediums. For example i think TV or Digital rights of IPL r both a great investment but for BCCI rights i think TV will still get more viewership than digital. ICC rights may perform well on both mediums but again it also depends on how team India performs at World Cup or other tournaments part of the agreement.
I think Disney-Star should bid for just TV rights for BCCI matches while they should also continue TV/Digital rights syndication deal with Fancode for cricket or other sports. They need to relaunch English GEC, Youth Channel airing mix pf music/bollywood and hinfi dubbed hollywood movies/Hindi Dubbed International Shows including K Dramas / Old Channel V and Bindass Shows as well as add fresh content.
On OTT front they need to provide most content including premium ones for free with ad driven revenue model while continuing with premium subscription plans which has less dependency on ads.
TV as a medium has extremely bright future and scope for growth across genres, OTT will also grow but it will not be causing any major churn in TV subscriber base even when broadband has good reach and internet / OTT is affordable. Already there is a fatigue rising among OTT viewers bcoz of various reasons, if TV broadcasters evolve / reinvent and bring good curated content on TV at right pricing then surely channels will get huge ratings and ad revenue
with higher price. STAR is an Airtel, always depends on DTH/tv and Sony-Zee have a failure story like Vi
.
cinesamugam.com
suppose if the news comes true then i'm the one who first posted the news.