Preparations for merger of Airtel Digital TV and Tata Play, subscribers to be around four crore
A big company may soon emerge in the country’s digital streaming business. Tata Group and Bharti Group may soon merge their satellite TV business. This will create a joint company worth about $1.6 billion. The digital streaming business has grown rapidly in the last few years.
Bharti Airtel may operate the company formed after the merger. Bharti Airtel is likely to have more than 50 percent stake in it. A media report quoted sources as saying that the remaining stake in this company will be held by the shareholders of Tata Play. These shareholders also include Walt Disney.
Bharti Airtel, Tata Play and Walt Disney did not respond to requests sent by Reuters for comment in this regard. Tata Sons has about 70 percent stake in Tata Play. The remaining stake in this company is held by Walt Disney. In September last year, Airtel Digital TV and Tata Play together had more than 35 million subscribers. Recently, JioHotstar was launched by merging JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar. The entire content of both over-the-top platforms will be available in JioHotstar. Apart from shows and movies from JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar, content from various international studios and streaming platforms will also be shown on it. In the last few years, with the internet becoming cheaper, the popularity of streaming platforms has increased rapidly.
The new streaming platform will have about three lakh hours of content as well as live coverage of sports events. JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar have a user base of over 50 crores which is a combination of users of both platforms. However, it is not clear whether this user base includes the number of users having accounts on both platforms. Users will not need a subscription to watch movies, shows or live sports events on it. There are subscription plans on this streaming platform for uninterrupted and better experience. This means that paying subscribers will not be shown ads and will be able to view content at higher resolution.
