MxMIndia

Tag: Disney+ Hotstar

  • The first half of 2022 has seen its fair share of hits and misses on the streaming front. Shailesh Kapoor picks five Indian originals that made a mark in H1/2022

    2022 So Far: The Best of Indian Streaming

     

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh Kapoor2022 is more than halfway through, and even as the pandemic lurks around, the year has a semblance of normalcy to it, something we have not felt since 2019. The entertainment narrative in the pandemic years was largely centered around streaming (direct-to-OTT) content. This year, the conversation has shifted significantly to theatrical films, with the release of some big blockbusters, especially in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada languages.

     

    But streaming content continues to build a wider audience base, and is now a flourishing parallel industry that’s hard to not take notice of. The first half of the year has seen its fair share of hits and misses on the streaming front. Here’s my choice of five Indian streaming originals that made a mark in Jan-Jun 2022:

     

    5. A Thursday (Disney+ Hotstar)

    There haven’t been too many direct-to-OTT films that have made a mark this year, as the best content has been released theatrically first. But the Feb 2022 Hotstar thriller A Thursday, headlined by Yami Gautam Dhar, got the audience attention like no other film could. With an estimated viewership of 25.5 Mn, it is the most-watched streaming original film in India this year, ahead of the more-hyped Gehraiyaan. The thriller, with a very relevant message in the last act, may end up being the biggest direct-to-OTT film of the year too, given that streamers are now shifting their focus firmly to series than films.

     

     

    4. Gullak S3 (Sony LIV)

    Gullak is a partnership between a platform (Sony LIV) and a producer (TVF) who are both recognized for some excellent work in the streaming space over the last few years. The show revels in its simplicity and the ‘aam aadmi’ connect, making it stand out in a category that’s still driven by a predominantly cosmopolitan outlook. There has been amazing consistency across the three seasons of the show, in terms of character portrayal, the quality of humor, and the overall tonality of the show itself. One hopes the fourth season is round the corner, because the show’s growing fanbase is eagerly anticipating it.

     

     

    3. Suzhal: The Vortex (Amazon Prime Video)

    Created by Pushkar-Gayathri, of Vikram Vedha fame, crime thriller Suzhal has managed to find an audience outside its native (Tamil) market, despite the setting of the story setting being rooted in the local culture. The streaming category has made the language barrier a lesser factor over the last two years, and we can expect more shows like Suzhal to break through in the Hindi market in the coming months.

     

     

    2. Rocket Boys (Sony LIV)

    Rocket Boys, a biopic that traces the life of Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai, is a masterful recreation of an important chapter in modern Indian history. But it’s not the historical significance that makes the show so delightful to watch. Rocket Boys, created by Abhay Pannu, has an irresistible vibe, as it seamlessly blends humor with drama, romance with history, and irreverence with a sense of responsibility. Imaginative casting is one of the show’s strengths, and Jim Sarbh as Bhabha is particularly outstanding.

     

     

    1. Panchayat S2 (Amazon Prime Video)

    Panchayat is the second TVF show on this list. TVF’s strong presence on any Indian streaming list is a given, given the consistency of their offering over a few years now. Unlike Gullak, which has a more homely and next-door vibe, Panchayat has a certain cinematic quality to it, despite its simple, almost innocent, imagery. You can sense that this show is going to only get bigger and more ambitious with each season, because it’s uniquely wry style of giving social commentary is some sort of an acquired taste.

     

  • Disney+ Hotstar records a 100% sell-out of its ad inventory of the iconic show

    Koffee with Karan S7 only on OTT

    By Our Staff

     

    If the naughtiness on earlier seasons often got crass, sometimes downright vulgar (remember the Hardik Pandya show), get ready for some more of it. Since it’s OTT, all of this can work perhaps. Even if it’s Disney-owned Disney+ Hotstar. Crassness – in the garb of edginess – however doesn’t seem to upset the advertising community which shuns toxicity on news channels. While one isn’t criticising the move (god bless them!), a communique reports 100% of its ad inventory for the just-started Season 7 has been sold. The advertisers are some discerning names in business: Ajio Luxe, Bru, Amazon Alexa, BoAt, Only Natural Diamonds, Audi, Jaquar Bath+ Light and MyGlamm. The host is the same: Karan Johar.

     

    Said an unnamed Disney+ Hotstar spokesperson: “The popularity of reality shows has been growing, and as one of India’s longest-running reality talk show, Koffee with Karan establishes new standards with each new season, creating extraordinary excitement and for viewers and advertisers alike. The complete sell-out of the show’s ad inventory is a testimony to this fact, and with Koffee with Karan going Disney+ Hotstar exclusive, it offers a great opportunity for our advertisers to connect with their audiences said a. He further added, “We are thrilled to welcome onboard our sponsors for the latest season of the legacy talk show and are excited to see the response of the audiences.”

     

  • Indrani Sen weighs in the various dynamics of broadcast and OTT market given last week's auctions

    Thoughts on IPL Media Rights, a week after

     

     

    By Indrani Sen

     

    Indrani SenLast week, on June 14, 2022, the final results of the e-auction conducted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) were declared with the Board earning a whopping Rs 48,390 crore for all the packages offered by them for auction. The amount is almost three times of Rs 16,376.5 crore, the money which Star India paid for TV and Digital media rights for the 2017-2022 cycle. This has made IPL the second most valued sports league in the world, next to America’s National Football League pushing English Premier League to the third position.

     

    By now everyone knows that this time Disney Star India has won only Package A containing telecast rights (India sub-continent) for next five years 2023-27 by bidding Rs. 23,575 crore. Viacom18 has bagged Package B containing digital rights (India subcontinent), Package C containing digital rights of 18 matches per season and part of Package D containing media rights (both TV and digital) for three global regions, Australia + New Zealand, the UK and South Africa, the main cricket playing countries whose players have been regularly participating in the IPL tournament. There is some confusion in the market related to the total payment of Rs.23,758 crores made by Viacom 18 to BCCI as lot of people have concluded that the amount has only been paid for the domestic digital rights whereas Viacom18 actually paid Rs 20,500 crore for the domestic digital rights. The media rights for the balance global regions have been won by Times Internet.

     

    Lalit Modi has been getting lot of coverage related to IPL media rights auction this time as cricket historian and author Boria Majumdar timed the release of his book on Lalit Modi “Maverick Commissioner” last week right after the announcement of the winners of IPL’s e-auction for media rights for 2023- 2027. Majumdar also announced that his book will soon be made into a film. Suddenly. media channels are busy interviewing Lalit Modi who is having a field day. At the time of writing, I read his interview on www.mykhel.com where he has said that BCCI should make it mandatory for all IPL franchises to own a women’s team in order to start a Women’s IPL in India. Last week, in an interview to NDTV Sports, he said that value of media rights will double again in next cycle as IPL viewership is probably the highest in the world in terms of people watching the matches (https://sports.ndtv.com/ipl-2022/ipl-viewership-probably-highest-in-the-world-lalit-modi-to-ndtv-3079226 ).

     

    While the Indian M&E industry is still struggling with its overall growth after the pandemic, one wonders from where the growth in the value of IPL media rights will happen? According to the EY FICCI report 2022, digital advertising grew by 29% in 2021 and TV advertising grew by 25% in 2021 which was still slightly short of the pre-Covid 2019 level. TV subscriptions continued to fall in 2021 for the second consecutive year. In the last few weeks of IPL, there was a sharp fall in the TV viewership which had raised doubts about the base rates fixed by BCCI for the e-auction. If any particular media property grows at a much higher rate than the market average for a certain period, it does so at the cost of other media properties in the same media bucket which cannot be sustained in the long run. Only time will tell if the value of IPL media rights based on the current e-auction will be actually attained.

     

    Back in 2016, when Star India won the TV and Digital rights for IPL (2017-2023), a lot of doubts were raised about the possibility of their success in achieving the targets. This time, industry people are speculating more about the winning bid of Rs 20,500 made by Viacom 18 for the digital rights and the implications of TV and digital rights going to two different organisations.  The Reliance-backed Viacom18 seems to have played its cards well based most likely on a deep-routed strategy for increasing their market share in online video viewing backed by the huge share of Jio in the telecom market. The introduction of 5G is expected to change consumers’ choice for live viewership of sports events from TV to mobile during this 2023-2027 cycle.

     

    According to an article by Javed Farooqui on Exchange4media on May 7, 2022, London-based Omdia’s recently published report on online video viewing trends shows that in India Disney+Hotstar leads the chart with 41% share. The article also shared the following graphic from the research.

     

    Source: https://www.exchange4media.com/digital-news/disney-hotstar-has-41-share-of-indian-online-video-subscription-market-omdia-112817.html

     

    Disney+ Hotstar’s subscription base tripled during pandemic years from 8 million to around 25 million by the end-2020, thanks mostly to IPL’s coverage and the competitive pricing of its annual plan. Omdia believes Disney+ Hotstar will continue to lead the standalone subscription online video market. The same report estimated that online video-on-demand (VOD) subscription market in India reached a value of $639 million in 2020, up by 142% from 2019. Disney+ Hotstar and Netflix together accounted for 78% of the total online video subscription market.

     

    ViacomI8 may be planning to revive Voot with this bid for digital media rights of IPL and may be also ready to write off losses, if any, as part of marketing cost for promoting Voot. With 41% marketshare, Disney+Hotstar was not required to invest proportionately high amount in winning the digital rights of the IPL. On the other hand, Disney Star India has a greater need to protect its turfs in the various TV genres where competition is much stronger.

     

  • Continuing with his series of reviews of #AdsonIPL, Vikas Mehta checks the ads streamed on OTT platform Disney+ Hotstar

    IPL ads through the lens of Hotstar

     

     

    By Vikas Mehta

     

    Vikas MehtaI am currently travelling and based at a university campus in Telangana. The access to screen is mostly through mobile and as such have been watching IPL on Disney+ Hotstar. Trust me it is a very different experience. Or should I say unusual.On Star Sports the ad breaks seem to be rushed, many a times in a hurry to squeeze in as many ads as possible, the ads have to be rudely interrupted, as the game has resumed. Indeed, sometimes one gets a feeling that we are watching an ad programme with bits and pieces of cricket thrown in. But Hotstar being a subscription-based service, its dependence on advertising revenue is low. So, there are fewer ads and these are not crammed in. Quite, unusual.

     

    But what set me thinking were the types of ads on Hotstar. I was expecting some very different ads. Aimed at the GenZ. The young, mobile generation. In reality, most of the ads were the same that ran on Star Sports, signalling some combined deal or rate.  And a few exclusive ones that I saw were surprisingly targeting a very different consumer segment than what I imagined.

     

    Take, for example, the ad for Samsung curd maestro. No, it’s not a new gizmo launched by Samsung but a refrigerator which has a separate compartment to make fresh curd or dahi. The product is not new, it has been around for some time and I do think that it is a great innovation for our country as curd is a part of our staple diet. Curd making usually requires warm temperature and then we love the curd which is thick and set, not the loose wobbly type. So a fridge which actually makes the curd and let it set, is a welcome feature. But, should it be on Hotstar? Shouldn’t it be on Star TV for a better reach? Or is it targeting the working woman, a millennial, as the ad depicts? Or indeed, it could be targeting the working millennial men. After all, they are being exhorted to share the load.

     

    Then I saw the ad for New Samsung Galaxy S phone. A right fit for the people watching IPL on Hotstar. Maybe, Samsung did a corporate deal with Hotstar and is now distributing the time available to various brands. Not just about the right choice but complying with a good deal.

     

    Then there was the Garnier Hair Colour ad. That too seemed a misfit for Hotstar in my mind. Okay, okay. I do get it that the modern, contemporary lifestyle is making many youngsters get white hair very early, but will a larger segment buying hair colour solution not be watching the match on Star Sports? The ad definitely, given its casting is talking to the millennials.

     

    When I look at both, Garnier and Curd Maestro, another plausible theory comes into mind. As said earlier, Hotstar being a subscription channel, could be selling ad inventory at a lower price and that is encouraging brands, who may be using the platform to address a small or niche segment.

     

    In my mind, there are two bigger or fundamental questions. One: Is OTT a distinct channel with its own dedicated base? Even when at home, an event like IPL, is it watched through OTT or DTH/cable? Irrespective of whether it is watched on big or small screen. How many viewers who subscribe to Hotstar also have DTH connection at home? What is the duplication factor?

     

    Two: Is screen viewing becoming a more individual pursuit? GenZ, even though they are at home and have a DTH connection prefer to watch it on their individual small screens (laptops or mobiles) and the millennials watch it on TV, with friends or families? My dipstick evidence shows that with GenZ, watching sports is becoming an individual pursuit but interestingly, while they do watch alone, they are furiously chatting away with each other, exchanging views, developing memes etc. Normal social behaviour, but in a virtual world.

     

    The one ad that I saw on Hotstar and did not see or maybe missed on Star Sports was that for Slice Credit card. Now I had never heard about this brand except, if my memory serves me right, I see them as the new shirt sponsor for Mumbai Indians. Its benefit is to slice the slow and it is for the fast ones. It has an animated/ cartoon execution but it left me in a daze. Maybe I am too slow for it or out of touch with reality but it looked like an ad which may inspire the GenZ. Are credit cards seriously targeting GenZ? But after a product like Cred, whose purpose is to pay my credit card bills and then reward me for doing so, while surreptitiously collecting all my purchase behaviour data, I can imagine not just a product like Spice Credit Card but also its ads. And the only thing usual, or is it unusual, is its association with MI who have very unusually, or is it becoming usual for them, lost a record eight matches in a row.

     

    Two weeks ago, I had written about how the Tata Neu app showed me a message that Big Basket is not delivering to my area, whereas in reality I have been using BB since some time. I am happy to say that the app seemed to have recovered some ground as this morning I got a message that I have received some Neu coins when I shopped through Big Basket app. The Neu family seems to be coming together.

     

  • Authenticated by Akshara Centre

    Ariel and Disney+ Hotstar curate a list of films that SeeEqual

    By Our Staff

     

    Ariel India and Disney+ Hotstar have curate a list of films and shows that ‘SeeEqual’.

     

    Speaking about the collaboration, Sharat Verma, Chief Marketing Officer, P&G India & Vice President, Fabric Care, P&G India said:  “Over the last seven years, Ariel #ShareTheLoad has sparked conversations to address the inequality in the division of household chores. This year, with the message to #SeeEqual, we want to bring to light the unconscious biases, stemming from decades of conditioning, that come in the way of us all sharing the load equally. To accelerate change, it is important we reinforce positive imagery that promotes gender equality, and shatters stereotypes. We are happy to partner with Disney+ Hotstar to put out a curated list of films and shows that portray strong women, progressive circumstances, and equal relationships. Do check out the See Equal and #ShareTheLoad collection!”

     

    Added Dr Nandita Shah, Co-Director Akshara Centre: “We are happy to join #SeeEqual as it resonates with what Akshara Centre has been working towards for more than two decades. It is indeed challenging to build conversations on gender equality in an atmosphere where sexism and objectification is normalized and reinforced rampantly in popular media. In this partnership with Ariel and Disney+ Hotstar, we would like to substantiate few movies and series that have begun showing positive portrayal of women. We invite the audience to join us in changing the negative narrative and making the switch to positive depictions. This will enable us to take stronger steps towards gender equality.”

     

  • The ad campaign will be aired throughout the Indian Premier League

    Disney+ Hotstar joins CoinSwitch Kuber to back cryptocurrrency

    By Our Staff

    CoinSwitch Kuber, India’s largest cryptocurrency investment platform for retail investors, has announced the launch of its new ad campaign, Trade Kar, Befikar.  With this, CoinSwitch Kuber becomes the first player in the Indian cryptocurrency space to launch a campaign to evangelise cryptocurrencies as an alternate asset class and build equity amongst Indian investors. The company is also the Associate Sponsor with Disney+ Hotstar for the Indian Premier League.

    Created by Nihilent, the campaign consists of three interconnected ad films. Actor Kunaal Roy Kapur has been roped in to play all the roles in the ad films. The campaign will be aired on Disney+ Hotstar throughout the Indian Premier League and will also be amplified using social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

    Said Ashish Singhal, CEO and Co-founder, CoinSwitch Kuber: “Millennials and GenZ are emerging as the biggest backers of cryptocurrencies in India. With our new ad campaign we aim to showcase how it is a smart move to invest early in cryptocurrencies. Crypto has been the fastest growing asset class of the last decade and the momentum is only growing stronger now. Through our partnership with Disney+ Hotstar, we aim to amplify this message to millions of young and upwardly mobile Indians. It is time to join the crypto revolution by investing in cryptocurrencies through CoinSwitch Kuber – the safest and most friendly platform for crypto investments.”

    Added KV ‘Pops’ Sridhar, Global Chief Creative Officer, Nihilent: “The CoinSwitch Kuber ad films are special for us as they give us an opportunity to involve our audience into experiencing a completely new investment category that most of them may not be familiar with. We therefore decided to go for stories which not only highlight the utility of this new asset class but also place it firmly within the Indian family context as something that everyone can invest in and which is not a domain of the elite.”

     

     

  • To launch mega marketing campaign for well-designed, high-quality home interiors

    Disney+ Hotstar partners with Livspace

    By Our Staff

    Home interiors and renovation platform Livspace has launched a campaign titled “Don’t try this at home”  to raise awareness about the importance of living in a well-designed home with great interior design. To market the campaign, Livspace has partnered with Disney+ Hotstar, as an associate sponsor for the Indian Premier League (IPL).

    Said Kartikeya Bhandari, Chief Marketing Officer at Livspace: “As market leaders, Livspace is focused on creating the organised interiors category in all its launched cities and countries. It’s our constant endeavour to introduce more and more homeowners to a professional way of getting home interiors done. This time, we have taken our brand promise of high quality and efficient design and presented it through the “Don’t try this at home” campaign. The narrative is also timely as many people have spent months cooped up at home and have started noticing the inconveniences caused by poor design. IPL has always been  a great platform for brands to present their narrative and with this season having kicked off, we at Livspace believe this is a great opportunity to reach a large audience and inspire them to improve their daily lives at home with interiors from Livspace.”

    Added Adarsh Atal, Director – Creative and Content at Tilt Brand Solutions: “As a brand, Livspace strongly believes that great interior design is not just about the way things look. It’s also about function. Taking a leap forward from our previous campaign that dealt with ‘Living with design flaws’, this time around, we decided to emphatically warn people about the implications of living in a poorly designed home. ‘Don’t try this at home’ is our tongue firmly-in-cheek way of telling people not to try stunts at home and try Livpsace to discover the joy of smart design.”

  • The report predicts that the IPL buzz volume of the digital track will grow from 37 mn in 2019 to 60 mn+ in 2020, writes Indrani Sen

    IPL 13 Rules. And how!

     

    By Indrani Sen

     

    Ever since IPL 13 began on September 19, 2020 with a massive 20 crore viewers on Star India Network and Disney + Hotstar, the tournament has been delivering high ratings on TV and OTT platforms.

     

    On the digital media front, IPL 13 is generating huge tractions over and above its coverage through Star India’s OTT platform Disney  + Hotstar. On October 30, 2020 Wavemaker published a press release on their mid-season report of “IPL Mesh 2020” covering matches from September 19 to October 24. Mesh is Wavemaker’s Realtime Data Intelligence tool which has integrated data from “multiple consumer touchpoints across Digital ecosystem ranging from Social Listening, Google Searches, Website visits, BARC, Video analytics in partnership with VIDOOLY, Interaction data points collected from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube” to arrive at the observations and predictions shared in the report.

     

    The press release by Wavemaker contains a few charts and whets the appetite for the total report. The report predicts that the IPL buzz volume of the digital track will grow from 37 Mn in 2019 to 60 Mn + in 2020. During the first 36 days of the tournament, CSK was the driving force behind the interactions on social media. Now that CSK has failed to secure a place in the playoff matches, it will be interesting to watch if the buzz volume of the track gets affected. Similarly, it would be interesting to see who takes the place of M S Dhoni as wicketkeeper in the Leading Player Index Leader Board.

     

    In the Leaderboard ranking of most loved ads, Dream 11, Oppo and Tata Motors took the first three positions in desending order. IPL 13 has also seen a never before engagement in gamification of Cricket Fantasy League with the top five Fantasy League in September 2020 generating 30 million google searches and 90 Million web traffic. Based on historical data, the report claims that there will be huge surge both in TVP and social buzz during the next two weeks which will counter the drop in the social media buzz over during the last few weeks as shown in the chart above.

     

    While the Wavemaker’s report reconfirms the accelerated growth of the digital media intractions in India, in traditional TV media also IPL 13 continues to deliver high ratings to the satisfaction of the advertisers who have invested their advertising rupee in cricket. A fortnight back on October 15, TAM released “IPL 13 Advertising Report 1” based on their ADEX data covering the period from September 19 to October 10 (25 natches).  The report has shown an 8% growth registered in average ad volumes from IPL 12 to IPL 13 during the same time span/ number of matches. 5 out of the top 10 categories have been from E-commerce with 35% share of IPL 13 advertising volume and Oppo India’s commercial made it to the top position quite fast during IPL 13 compared to 2nd position in IPL 12.

     

    The most interesting fact which has emerged from this Advertising Report is the participation of new categories and brands in IPL 13. According to the TAM Adex report 30+ new categories and 150+ new brands advertised during IPL 13 compared to IPL 12. It remains to be seen how the advertising frenzy builds up further during the last two weeks of IPL 13, strategically scheduled during the pre-Diwali season in this pandemic hit year.

     

  • Celebrate Diwali with blockbuster movie Mookuthi Aman starring Nayanthara and RJ Balaji

    Disney+ Hotstar VIP embraces Tamil

    By A Correspondent

     

    With its next big leap in content, Disney+ Hotstar VIP aspires to become the personal screen for Tamil content-watching audiences.

     

    Starting this Diwali, there is a major line-up planned, the first of which is blockbuster movie Mookuthi Aman starring Nayanthara and RJ Balaji. The platform is also set to launch specials shows – LIVE Telecast directed by Venkat Prabhu and starring Kajal Aggarwal; My Perfect Husband starring actors Sathyaraj and Seetha, Triples produced by Karthik Subbaraj and starring Jai Sampath and Vani Bhojan and November Story starring Kollywood’s Tamannaah Bhatia. And there’s more planned.

     

    Said Sunil Rayan, President & Head, Disney+ Hotstar: “We have always been at the forefront of reinventing and reimagining content in India. As we lay the foundation of presenting authentic stories that appeal to Tamil audiences, we are very excited to partner with some of the most prolific minds of the industry. As we announce the launch of new movies-before-theatre and Hotstar Specials shows, we are adding to our existing promise of providing great Tamil entertainment across Live Sports, before TV access to Star VIjay shows and much more – giving our audiences a wide array of content to choose from”

     

     

  • The film was the most sampled streaming content piece in India ever, with upwards of 50 mn streamers accessing it, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Dil Bechara: Success of Serendipitous Proportions

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Over the last seven weeks, following Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, allegedly by suicide, a murky Bollywood story has been playing out in the media. It started with a nepotism narrative, and has eventually snowballed into a larger controversy that’s an incoherent concoction of various sub-narratives, including nepotism, clique culture, allegations of a botched-up police investigation, celebrities using Rajput’s death to make their presence felt, and journalists using his death to get some primetime traction. There’s neither class nor grace in any of this, and one only wishes that chapter is resolved and closed soon within the legal framework.

     

    In the midst of all the mess, Rajput’s last film Dil Bechara dropped on Disney+ Hotstar last Friday. The film was originally scheduled for a theatrical release, but with theatres closed indefinitely, it has made its way to the audience via streaming, like many other Hindi films have, and will, in the next few weeks.

     

    Under normal circumstances, the film would have been a usual streaming release, getting its share of viewership based on its content and its credentials. But the events of the six weeks leading up to the film’s release are anything but “normal circumstances”. Disney+ Hotstar wisely decided to not put the film behind the paywall, hence opening it up to a wider AVOD audience base. While streaming platforms do not share numbers publically, our estimates suggest the film would easily be the most-sampled streaming content piece in India ever, with upwards of 50 million streamers accessing it. This number could be higher, closer to 75-80 million, and even more over the lifetime of the film. How much duration of the film they eventually sampled is another data point for which no estimates are currently available.

     

    In the Ormax OTT Audience Report: 2019, a research conducted in the second half of 2019, the estimated regular OTT Audience in India stood at 76.5 Million. This number would have increased significantly over the last year, especially because of the surge in OTT consumption during the long-running lockdown. And then, there is a wider audience base that are irregular OTT audience, who may come to watch that occasional ‘event’. And Dil Bechara is as ‘eventful’ as it can get on streaming.

     

    Dil Bechara is not a usual romantic film either. ‘Death’ is a central element in the film’s story, and the emotions it generates in the last half hour get amplified several notches because of the context one is watching the film in. That has ensured that the film has generated both pre and post-viewing conversations. The chart below lists the Top 10 shows/ direct-to-OTT films launched in India since April 2020, based on the ‘buzz’ they generated in the week of their release. Dil Bechara’s takes the top position by some distance.

     

    There have been some silly media stories trying to convert the film’s estimated sampling into theatrical box =0office, by multiplying it with an average ticket price number. This cross-media mumbo-jumbo is so silly that inspires me to mathematically prove that if the Hindi GEC show Kundali Bhagya released in theatres in a movie spin-off, it will beat the collections of Bahubali 2, Avengers: Endgame and Dangal put together. There is no vaccine yet for media illiteracy, and journalists in some of the biggest publications in India can desperately do with some immunity.

     

    Like Ramayan earlier this year, Dil Bechara’s streaming performance is a serendipitous event in which the timing, more than anything else, contributed to an immensely successful outcome. Disney+ Hotstar would know, better than anyone else, that this cannot be replicated.

     

     

  • Pledges their support to the BMC and Mumbai Police in the battle against Covid-19

    Star India join hands with Project Mumbai

    By A Correspondent

     

    In an effort to support the Covid-19 outbreak response, Star India and Disney+ Hotstar have partnered with the former journalist Shishir Joshi-spearheaded Project Mumbai to provide over 200,000 Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) kits to health workers at BMC and an additional 10,000 khakhi-coloured kits for the Mumbai Police.

     

    Notes a communique: “Mumbai being the most hit by the pandemic, the support will aid the ongoing efforts in meeting the demand for PPE kits for almost four weeks. Showcasing solidarity with the numerous medical, health, and protection warriors, the initiative seeks to equip the selfless people who are at the front line battling the Covid-19 pandemic.”

     

     

  • Three distinct offerings – Disney+ Hotstar VIP, Disney+ Hotstar Premium and an ad-supported basic tier will be available for consumers

    Hotstar will be Disney+ Hotstar set from April 3

    By A Correspondent

     

    Star India has announced the upgrade of Hotstar to Disney+ Hotstar from April 3, 2020. With a fresh new look and enhanced user interface, Disney+ Hotstar will offer content from Disney and technological expertise of Hotstar, giving users an unparalleled video streaming experience.

     

    Three distinct offerings – Disney+ Hotstar VIP, Disney+ Hotstar Premium and an ad-supported basic tier will be available for consumers.

     

    Said Uday Shankar – President, The Walt Disney Company APAC and Chairman, Star & Disney India: “With the success of Hotstar, we ushered in a new era for premium video streaming in India. Today, as we unveil Disney+ Hotstar, we take yet another momentous step in staying committed to our promise of delivering high-quality impactful stories for India that have not only entertained but also made a difference in people’s lives, a promise that is even more meaningful in challenging times such as this. We hope the power of Disney’s storytelling, delivered through Hotstar’s technology, will help our viewers find moments of comfort, happiness and inspiration during these difficult times.”