Entertainment:-
Hotstar has around 8 million paying subscribers in India, its owner Disney revealed. This is significant, as Hotstar, now rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar, has never revealed how many paying subscribers it has in India, choosing instead to reveal total viewer counts — the service’s ad supported tier has several more takers. Hotstar Premium was launched in April 2016, and the cheaper VIP tier was launched in 2019. The 8 million count includes VIP users, who pay less than Rs 400 per year (which is less than the monthly price for Disney+ in other countries). All in all, Hotstar tells advertisers that it has 300 million monthly users, which would make paying subscribers under 3% of its user base.
Disney+ now has more than 50 million subscribers globally, per Disney’s announcements, including the 8 million Disney+ Hotstar subscribers in India.
Disney has been pushing for a form of self-regulation of streaming services in India that would require streaming services to submit to the authority of a Digital Content Complaints Committee, raising the spectre of self-censorship, we reported last month. Those efforts are briefly stalled as the Internet and Mobile Association of India is struggling to get enough streaming services on board to take the proposal to the government.
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