Star India: Last News

When Mumbai commercial powerhouse Reliance Industries and Disney India decided to team up and form India’s largest broadcasting, production and streaming business, it was clear the ambition was as big as the $8.5B pricetag slapped on the deal.

Naman Ramachandran India’s JioStar has achieved what few streaming platforms have managed globally, doubling its subscriber base to 100 million just six weeks after launch. The milestone represents an extraordinary achievement for the platform, which emerged from the $8.5 billion merger of India’s Reliance Industries and Disney‘s Indian media assets. The deal combined Disney’s Star India with Reliance’s Viacom18 and streaming platforms JioCinema and Hotstar.

Naman Ramachandran In a landmark move that reshapes India‘s streaming landscape, JioStar has unveiled JioHotstar, merging JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar. The unified platform, launching Feb. 14, boasts nearly 300,000 hours of content and claims a user base exceeding 500 million.

Friends, Romans, Insider fans! Lend my your ears. Jesse Whittock here, back with the latest international film and TV news in the week Gladiator II released and Disney’s Indian plans came to fruition.

Naman Ramachandran India‘s entertainment landscape shifted Thursday as Reliance Industries and Disney completed their long-awaited media merger, creating an Indian powerhouse valued at $8.5 billion. The deal combines Disney’s Star India with Reliance’s Viacom18 and streaming platforms JioCinema and Hotstar. Nita M.

Disney and Reliance Industries have completed the $8.5B deal to form a media and entertainment giant in India.

EXCLUSIVE: India Amarteifio (Queen Charlotte) and Damian Hardung (Maxton Hall – The World Between Us) have signed on to star in the coming-of-age drama Into The Deep Blue. 

Rudie Obias editor If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. With the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 finished, the cricket world turns its attention to Major League Cricket 2024 — the United States’ premier T20 cricket league. This is the second season for MLC with six teams, including MI New York, Texas Super Kings, Los Angeles Knight Riders, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas and Washington Freedom.

Naman Ramachandran Billionaire Mukesh Ambani‘s streamer JioCinema is making a play to become India’s top streaming service by introducing cheap premium tier plans. From April 25, the service’s existing INR999 ($12) annual plan for international premium content is being replaced by a monthly plan of INR29 (35 cents) for a single device or INR89 ($1.05) monthly for a family plan that covers four devices. The new plans are branded JioCinema Premium and will be up to 4K streaming quality.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Paramount Global has sold its 13% ownership stake in TV and streaming company Viacom18 to Reliance Industries for $517 million. Reliance was already the majority owner of Viacom18. The pact comes two weeks after Disney and Reliance Industries announced a blockbuster $8.5 billion deal merging their massive Indian TV and streaming businesses.

Paramount Global has sold its 13% equity interest in Viacom18 Media to Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries for the equivalent $517 million.

$10 billion Sony-ZEE merger plans and late February’s confirmation that Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (which incorporates Viacom18 and streamer JioCinema) is to tie up most of Disney’s streaming and pay-TV businesses in an $8.5 billion deal, Indian media is set to gain a new market leader. For local and international operators in the world’s most populous nation, the consequences of those tectonic shifts extend across streaming, pay-TV, channels, advertising, sports and content.

Walt Disney Company and billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries have merged their massive Indian TV and streaming businesses, ending months of speculation. As per the agreement, Reliance’s Viacom18 is merging with Disney’s Star India. The deal is estimated to be worth $8.5 billion on a ‘post-money basis,’ the companies said.

EXCLUSIVE: Ruchi Narain was obsessed with ABC‘s early 2010s drama Revenge — so much so that she spent years trying to land the rights to remake the Mike Kelley show in India.

Disney has taken another big step toward realigning its India strategy. The company has signed a non-binding term sheet with Reliance Industries that would see the two merge their Indian operations, the completion of which would create one of India’s biggest entertainment empires. The news was first reported by The Economic Times.

Tim Chan If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The world’s top cricket players have gathered in India for the 2023 Cricket World Cup. Officially known as the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, the event pits ten of the best cricket nations in the world against each other for a chance to hoist the official trophy of the One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament.

Bodhi Tree Systems co-founder and former Disney APAC chief Uday Shankar outlined how his new venture – along with Reliance’s JioCinema – are building an alternative to legacy media in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets, on the first day of Media Partners Asia’s APOS conference in Bali, Indonesia. 

Naman Ramachandran Prolific Indian studio Applause Entertainment and Zindagi, the Indian subcontinent-focused programming block on streamer ZEE5 Global, have set a wide-ranging content partnership. The partnership will create South Asian-themed content from across the subcontinent. The initial burst of productions will be in the Hindustani (combining Hindi and Urdu) language that is understood across the subcontinent.

Currently riding high on the success of Netflix series Rana Naidu, Indian production outfit Locomotive Global is building out its slate through a string of deals with companies including All3Media and Endemol Shine India.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief In cricket-mad India the upcoming Indian Premier League tournament could be a watershed for the country’s jostling media empires, according to Singapore-based consultancy and analysis firm, Media Partners Asia. Video rights for the tournament were split between incumbent pay-TV player Disney Star India, which paid close to $3.1 billion for broadcast rights to the five 2023-2027 editions, and Viacom18, which is backed by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and Paramount (as a minority stakeholder), in partnership with financier Bodhi Tree Systems. It paid a similar sum for the separate digital rights. Media Partners Asia estimates that advertising revenues spawned by the two-month 2023 competition will end up around $550 million – representing a clear loss on the annualized cost of $1.2 billion, or roughly $600 million per conglomerate, for the tournament rights. (The analysis firm forecasts that RIL will earn $300-350 million in ad sales, while Star’s best-case scenario is $220 million.)

(Reuters) - Disney Star will broadcast International Cricket Council (ICC) events in India after bagging the digital rights to both men's and women's global competitions through to the end of 2027, the sport's governing body announced on Saturday. The ICC said in a statement https://www.