[Lord-Lannister]

Originally Posted by GTO

And fans of series such as "Succession" (new season just released), well, we don't know where to watch it.

As a big fan of Succession, I was shocked that not only was the new season not coming to a hotstar but they’re losing all of HBO content. At this point, I have lost compete interest in Marvel, and Disney seems to be running on fumes with the Mandalorian and Star Wars content.

Would most definitely not be renewing for another year once it expires.
Until then, I’m back to sailing high seas for my HBO needs. Ahoy!

An interesting observation on google trends search terms for the last 90 days.

[UD17]

Very true observation indeed. I personally has:

1. Renounce my Netflix subscription (due to poor contents)
2. No intention to renew my Hotstar subscription (Free Hotstar subscription is ending soon)
3. Just Prime video due to prime membership (this will stay but used very minimally)
4. No other subscription, non has any intention to buy any

All new series, movies looks as if i have already seen them before.

[udzgodfather]

Had used a friend's hotstar for watching Boston Legal. That was the only content on Hotstar that moved me, It never looked like a product worth subscribing too, even now I feel Amazon Prime and Netflix are also loosing its charm.

[Hayek]

Very different perspective here. The fact is that most OTT platforms in India are dirt cheap. Hotstar costs just ₹1500 a year - even if I watch one film or sports event in a year, it is worth it. I have subscriptions to my old Tata Sky DTH (mainly for South Indian channels and sports) but also to Hotstar, Netflix, Prime, and Sony LIV. If Jio Cinema goes paid, I will pay for it too. The overall cost is less than watching 2-3 movies in a theatre or a nice dinner for the family.

[Axe77]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Hotstar costs just ₹1500 a year - even if I watch one film or sports event in a year, it is worth it.

I have the same view actually. While I’m incredibly disappointed at the shrinking base of some excellent tie ups like HBO, it still makes sense even if its just for football (EPL) alone combined with some random content like Marvel which my son watches or some other legacy content which I flick through occasionally (like Modern Family etc). For even this residuary content, I’m ok to pay 1500 bucks a year.

Unlike Tata Sky, I can use my subscription on all the TVs in my house (so used by multiple family members) as well as on my iPad while I’m travelling domestically at least.

Like Hayek said, its less than the cost of one family outing for a movie in a theatre. At its current going rate, I’m not overthinking this one too much.

[Vikki@Hyderabad]

My priorities with Hotstar were:

1. Formula 1
2. Cricket
3. Marvel

Couldn't help but subscribe to F1TV - can't stay away from it even during testing. Jiocinema is free (but I hate it that they keep trying to bucket us into age groups on the app - haven't lost the fight yet) as IPL is on. Now, I've actually grown bored of Marvel - but my kid isn't. That's probably the last thread for Hotstar.

[guru_max]

Too much diversification of content is not good for OTT platforms as well, it would just lead to more privacy. And particulary F1 seems to have made a bad decision. There's no dearth of content these days. No one expect hardcore fans will subscribe to a new platform just to watch f1.

[noopster]

Originally Posted by creative420

I’m just using the free VIP (worth 899) subscription that I got bundled with Airtel Broadband. Thank god HBO moved away, my wife was about to renew the premium 1499 subscription thinking they’ll air the 4th season of Succession. Jio has done a very aggressive revamp of their OTT. Thinking of shifting to Jio Broadband when the Airtel Broadband annual subscription ends in July.

I'm thinking of doing this myself. I was an early adopter of the Hotstar app back in 2015-16 to catch the latest episodes of GoT real time! The app was so buggy at the time it wasn't funny. They have really come a long way and it's a shame to see them throw it all away like this.

One amusing aside: after moving to our new place a couple of years ago we had transitioned to OTT-only household so now in addition to the cool stuff, Hotstar is also the only way for my family to catch up on our favourite Star Pravah (Marathi) serials So it looks like am stuck with it for now!

[Revvatron]

Originally Posted by ferrarirules

It is interesting to the see there is no other football fan in the people responding till now. It kind of shows the popularity of cricket vs football.

Football fan here. For me Hotstar comes along with Jio subscription so not paying anything extra. But I am only using it for premier league matches(which is mostly on weekends) and occasional re-runs of Family Guy. Apart from that I never open that app, right now I do for weekly "The Mandalorian" episodes but that too sucks

[TheRandomGuy]

Originally Posted by maverickNerd

you don't need to pay anything, use https://12ft.io/, this site will give you free to read version of same article, it works due to Google crawler.

I tried this already, along with so many other methods. Even editing the web user agent to googlebot. The ken guys have handled all these properly and the paywall still stays.

Were you able to successfully unblock?

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

Ken is decent but nothing extra ordinary. Have its membership and while the articles seemed really good initially, after sometime you realize it is regular stuff packed with extra chat maasala. Surprisingly, Finshots does a fabulous job despite being free!

I'll probably try Economic Times Prime membership next.

Ohh.. That's good to hear, maybe I can skip The-Ken after all.

[GreyNomad]

Quite an interesting thread. Thing is content subscription is dirt cheap in India. Hence, despite millions of subscribers, subscription revenue is massively under-indexed. Media reports estimate that HBO content contributed to ~480000 paying subs at 1500bucks per annum per person. With HBO’s reported asking price of ~USD10million per year for 5 years, do the math. Also do note that HBO content being behind the paywall, isn’t monetised via ads.
So essentially Disney+Star was earning pennies on the dollar spent.
This logic applies to all licensed content.

Premium content is an expensive proposition and while the production and purchase (B2B) of such content outstrips, by a fair margin, the monetisation of it. When you add the layer of uncertainty of it being received well by the viewers, it introduces a massive ‘unknown’ into the equation.

So while there could be a perception hit that the product receives in the short term, perhaps they’re focusing on mid-long term profitability. Do remember Sony Pictures Networks India actually increased profitability after they gave up IPL rights.

[Eddy]

This is good news

https://www.gadgets360.com/entertain...r-bros-3984308

All HBO and Warner Bros. content will soon be available to stream on JioCinema. Reliance's Viacom18 and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a multi-year agreement Thursday, which details that ‘starting next month' - May 2023 - JioCinema would be the new home for WB's catalogue of TV series and movies in India. However, the library isn't solely limited to HBO originals — as seen with Disney+ Hotstar — and includes Max Original (formerly HBO Max) and other Warner Bros. productions as well.

[ValarMorghulis]

The loss of IPL and HBO properties seems to have hit Disney+Hotstar hard. Hotstar has lost a significant number of subscribers after letting go of popular IP like IPL, HBO original programs, F1, etc. Disney is now exploring sale or partners for India business.

Disney is exploring options to sell or find a joint venture partner for its India digital and TV business, a source with direct knowledge said on Wednesday.

The source, who declined to be named as the talks are confidential, said it will be difficult to find an outright buyer in India as the enterprise value of the India business was seen around $15-16 billion when Disney took over Fox's business.
Star India, which was rebranded as Disney Star last year, encompasses dozens of TV channels and a stake in a movie production company.

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[fhdowntheline]

I am seeing a slight downgrade in streaming quality on Hotstar during this current Wimbledon. The audio and video almost never keep up with each other. This is not happening for other live stuff including news channels.

[onedotsix]

As long as they have the Premier league, they have a loyal customer in me. Never watched anything else on it anyway