Reliance In Talks To Buy Majority Stake In Disney's Star Indian Business

Over the past few months, there have been many reports that Disney has been looking at its options with regards to its business in India, called Disney Star, formerly known as Star India, which it acquired when it purchased 20th Century Fox in 2019. Disney Star includes the streaming service Disney+ Hotstar, film studios such as Star Studios, an array of over seventy linear channels, and much more.

In the past few months, Disney has been having talks with many different businesses, including Sony, Blackstone, Sun TV and New Delhi TV, about potentially selling some or all of its assets in India. According to Bloomberg , Reliance Industries Ltd, which is owned by Asia’s richest tycoon Mukesh Ambani, is getting close to completing a deal to buy Disney Star in a cash and stock deal. Disney is valuing its Indian business at around $10 billion (down from the $15 billion it was worth before Disney purchased it in 2019), and Reliance is valuing the business between $7 and $8 billion.

Disney is still looking to keep a minority stake in the company, but it would sell a controlling stake in Disney Star. But it still may keep hold of some assets. There might also be some regulatory issues that could cause delays with the buyout. We’ve seen with other large mergers that the Indian government might require some assets to be sold off separately.

It’s expected that the announcement of a deal could be made as early as next month. Disney does have a quarterly financial investors call on November 8th 2024, so announcing this deal, could help Disney offset the costs of buying out Comcast’s stake in Hulu, which is estimated to cost around $9 billion. Allowing Disney to basically sell off one business to cover its purchase, allowing Disney to focus on its core markets. Reliance would merge some of its media units into Disney Star.

JioCinema, which Reliance runs, has been a thorn in Disney’s side, having paid billions of dollars to get the Indian Premiere Cricket league rights, which resulted in Disney+ Hotstar losing over 20 million subscribers. Plus, recently, JioCinema also picked up the rights to HBO content, which was then removed from Disney+ Hotstar.

It’s unknown if Disney+ Hotstar will continue in its current setup or be merged with JioCinema. Could Disney+ just operate separately in India, without the Hotstar branding and content, which could move over to JioCinema? There are certainly more questions than answers right now.

So, what does this mean for Disney+ and Hulu around the world?

At the moment, officially, no deal has been announced, and no details on what’s actually going to happen have been revealed. There are many variables and potential outcomes from Disney selling its Indian assets. Selling Star India wouldn’t likely have much impact outside India, other than a potential move away from the Star branding and maybe changing the name of Disney+ Hotstar in some countries like Indonesia.

If Disney does sell off Disney Star, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see the Star hub within Disney+ around the world, rebranded to Hulu once Disney completes its purchase from Comcast. Disney has rebranded many linear channels to Star in countries worldwide, which might be another issue that results in more rebranding. While in Latin America, Disney runs a streaming service called, Star+, which is a Hulu & ESPN+ hybrid, but there is always hope Disney unifies Star+ and Disney+ in that region, to be similar to how Disney+ works internationally. The Star brand has only been used by Disney since 2019, and arguably, the brand is very generic and could easily be changed.

Disney is still running Hotstar as a separate streaming service in many countries, including Canada, Singapore and the UK, so those could be included in the deal. Hulu does have some Hotstar content from India, so this could continue to be licensed or eventually removed.

If Disney+ Hotstar was completely sold off, it would obviously have a significant impact on the global subscriber numbers for Disney+. However, Wall Street may prefer this, since a Hotstar subscriber generally brings in less than 60 cents per month, compared to over $7 outside of India. Investors may also like a more leaner Disney, focused on its core brands.

For Disney+ Hotstar subscribers, it does bring up many questions about what happens could be merged together and what the future is for its content. Internationally, it brings the Star branding into question. But ultimately, Disney does seem like its less interested in running a vast linear, streaming and studio business in India, instead treating it like more other countries in the world.

It’s important to note, that no final decision has been made, and Disney could still decide to hold onto the assets, but the Star Studios and linear channels, being sold off does seem much more likely.

Play Room's Disappearance From DStv And GOtv In The Rest Of Africa Explained

During the week, it was learnt that MultiChoice would be axing Da Vinci Kids across various DStv and GOtv platforms in Africa within November. Prior to the termination, MultiChoice would be debuting Play Room as new kids channel from Ngwato Nkosi Group in South Africa.

In an enquiry, it was revealed by a rep at Play Room that the channel will "for now" debut in RSA on DStv Channel 300. Consumers outside of South Africa on DStv and GOtv will have to make use of Disney Junior, Nick Jr. and other children's channels for a "similar offering".

As MultiChoice doesn't plan to replace Da Vinci Kids with another children's channel or in this case Play Room as this termination not only affected South Africa but the whole of Africa. Although, a reason for the exclusion hadn't been provided several theories come to mind.

Following Zee Zonke, the first theory that would come to mind would be language allocation. As the channel is confirmed to have "popular animated shows in isiZulu" and this included CoComelon and Akili And Me and something like this wouldn't be familiar in some countries.

Second theory which continues with the first was language switching. For all we know the content would be in English and Zulu with sign language incorporated so maybe the channel will look into adding more languages overtime but I'm not expecting that for South Africa.

The last theory would most probably have to do with costs, MultiChoice is not able to sustain themselves in some regions so much so that you'd have brands like Zambezi Magic covering large parts of Africa as opposed to having Mzansi Magic and kykNET operating in one region.

Considering how much money is being poured onto the local aspects of Play Room, MultiChoice Africa will probably want to filter it down to their budget and another would be them probably looking to launch a separate offering which is aligned to consumers in their region.

News Shorts: A Rebroadcast Of Pasion Prohibida AKA Forbidden Passion Launches On eExtra, Disney Channel And TNT Both Gearing Up With Respective Premieres Across Africa With Hailey's On It And 100 Years Of Warner Bros. Studios

Monica Spear and Jencarlos Canela star in a fan-favourite series

Forbidden Passion (Pasion Prohibida) is a 2012 soap opera produced by Telemundo Studios that told the story of a woman's scorn over her mother after discovering that her she cheated on her father prior to his death so she married the man she chased after there she falls for his nephew.

Based on the 2008 Turkish drama Aşk-ı Memnu which derives from the novel of the same name. It starred Monica Spear and Jencarlos Canela alongside Roberto Vander, Mercedes Molto, Rebecca Jones, Henry Zakka, Jorge Consejo and Carmen Aub.

The series broadcasts weekday mornings on eExtra from 1st  November.

Disney Channel rolls out another female led series

Hailey's On It is a comedy-adventure centers around a risk-averse hero who’s tasked with saving the world by completing every item on a long list of challenging tasks. Hailey’s On It! is slated for a 2023 release, and there was no additional information about its format at press time.

Auli’i Cravalho (Moana) is the voice actor behind lead character Hailey, with Manny Jacinto (The Good Place) as her best friend Scott. The series was created by Devin Bunje and Nick Stanton (Gamer’s Guide to Pretty Much Everything), and is in production at Disney Television Animation by a team that includes co-executive producer and supervising director Howy Parkins (Lion Guard), producer Wade Wisinki (The Owl House), story editor Karen Graci (Tuca & Bertie) and art director Lee Ann Dufour (The Breadwinner).

The series broadcasts weekday afternoons from 20 November on Disney Channel.

TNT is celebrating Warner Bros. Studios with a new documentary

100 Years of Warner Bros. takes a historical look at the legacy of one of America's leading studios. The documentary explores the origin, evolution and endurance of Warner Bros. - from a family affair to a global juggernaut.

Tracing a century of movie and TV history, these four documentary specials explore the unparalleled global impact of Warner Bros. on art, commerce, and culture. '100 Years of Warner Bros.' Doc featured George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey and Tim Burton.

It airs every Wednesday at 20:00 from December on TNT.

Development Alert: Zambezi Magic To Get Second TV Channel On The DStv And Possible GOtv Platform Known As Zambezi Reloaded, Still No Word On The Playout Test

Last year, MultiChoice and M-Net unveiled a new general entertainment channel tailored for their DStv Easyview and GOtv Lite consumers, Magic Showcase. It featured numerous local programming from multiple M-Net channels across Africa for 16 hours a day.

As seen in the past month, MultiChoice seems to be duplicating this format on another TV channel which we now know to be Zambezi Reloaded. It could launch on channel 165 seeing as Zambezi Magic is on channel 162 alongside a batch of local TV channels.

As the name implies, Zambezi Reloaded will serve as a sister channel to Zambezi Magic rehashing several drama series and reality shows viewed on the main channel including Kopala, Zuba, Malawi Know Your Stars and surprisingly Mzansi Magic's Shaka iLembe.

With HONEY set to go dark on the platform by the end of October, we assume MultiChoice would be substituting the brand with Zambezi Reloaded. The only question would be whether this channel would be viewable in South Africa as consumers don't have access to the content.

On top of that, Novela Magic was accessible to the same consumers as HONEY particularly Access and following the termination consumers had been ripped away from Zuba and Mpali as MultiChoice opted to exclude Magic Showcase from Access in which select content can be viewed.

Playout Test

For several months, MultiChoice had been conducting tests on a channel known as Playout Test. Several readers had asked Insidus on various details pertaining to the mysterious channel and from what we can gather up this could be the Zambian based brand Munati Television.

Although there's no official confirmation, one of their older posts talk about a "Playout Test" and "DStv" so putting those two together leads us to believe this could be mystery channel on the i-Plate.

Questions & Answers Regarding The Closure Of Da Vinci Kids And The Launch Of Play Room On DStv

Channel line-up review is done to ensure we deliver unbeatable content and that our DStv services cater for the needs and viewing requirements of our customers. As part of this ongoing process, Da Vinci Kids (DStv channel 318 & GOtv channel 66/157/359) will no longer be available on DStv & GOtv from 14 November 2023 at 23:59 CAT.

Why has MultiChoice decided to terminate this channel?

The channel termination is in line with MultiChoice’s strategy to continuously review international and local content line-ups and optimise DStv channels. As such, the business has decided to bid farewell to Da Vinci Kids (DStv channel 318 & GOtv channel 66/157/359). This is done to ensure we deliver unbeatable content to our customers and that our DStv services continue to cater to the needs and viewing requirements of our customers.

Will there be channels with similar content that will replace the terminated Da Vinci Kids in South Africa?

DStv customers can look forward to Play Room (channel 300) from 6 November, Play Room offers a whole new world of fun and learning in a uniquely local package carrying original South African and popular international content, including favourite animated titles dubbed in isiZulu.

For now the channel will only be available in South Africa.

Will there be channels with similar content that will replace the terminated Da Vinci Kids in the rest of Africa?

Consumers can find similar content on Disney Junior, Nick Jr. and other children channels - that's what we're told in an enquiry. As mentioned, Play Room will "for now" be available to DStv customers in South Africa meaning it's likely to be duplicated in other regions perhaps with an independent feed as seen with Newzroom Afrika and Movie Room (Africa).

Why is MultiChoice cancelling so many channels?

This is done to ensure we deliver unbeatable content and that our DStv/GOtv services cater to the needs and viewing requirements of our customers. MultiChoice regularly reviews its channel line-up to ensure we offer customers the best in local and international content.

Are you removing these channels because of poor ratings?

As Africa’s most-loved storyteller, MultiChoice continues to engage and work with third party channel providers to leverage its technology and provide world-class entertainment to our customers.

What content can consumers look forward to on Play Room?

The plan with Play Room is to combine education and entertainment through a mix of South African and international content like Paw Patrol and Game Shakers, together with animated titles dubbed into isiZulu.

Morning programming on Play Room will be centred around educational material for 4 to 6-year-olds, including interactive shows that encourage physical movement, as well as values-based and creative content designed to stretch children's imaginations.

Afternoons will feature live action and a local live show with high entertainment value for tweens.