Soon after the merging of OTT Platforms Disney+Hotstar and Jio Cinema, another two Indian streaming entities, Star India and Viacom18 are joining hands to boost their revenue with mutual acquisition. The amusing factor is that it will be known for its cash position which can even exceed about Rs.19,000 Crores. The merger has been approved by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
This has been initiated with the MoA (Memorandum of Agreement) by Walt Disney and Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) to which the latter will infuse an amount of Rs. 11,500 Crores. The balance amount of Rs.7,829 Crores will be the present cash reserves and investments by Viacom18. The primary objective of the construction of this alliance is to make major investments in digital and sports businesses.
Subsequently, this will be able to create a competitive ambiance among the streaming platforms where this has the expectation of tight neck and neck with opponents like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video who are comparatively much more experienced in the streaming market.
On an important note, this merging will be able in creating an arena for key sports events like the Indian Premier League (IPL), International Cricket Council (ICC) matches, Women Premier League and English Premier League for Cricket, Indian Super League (ISL) for Football and the Pro Kabbadi League (PKL) for Kabbadi which were early streamed solely on ‘Star India’.
Not to be the least, this effort seems to have an opportunity to represent a regional-friendly platform that consists of Hindi and other regional language channels which may aid the local audience. As per credible sources, this will have an estimated ability to produce around 600 million Dollars in Ebdita thereby making 1.3 billion Dollars in revenue.
In a nutshell, the merging of both platforms with different sources for better revenue can aid in the epitome of digital entertainment and financial investment.