India‘s amengagement landscape shifted Thursday as Reliance Industries and Disney finishd their lengthy-apostponeed media uniter, creating an Indian powerhoengage cherishd at $8.5 billion. The deal unites Disney’s Star India with Reliance’s Viacom18 and streaming platcreates JioCinema and Hotstar.
Nita M. Ambani will chair the joint venture, with media veteran Uday Shankar serving as vice chair. The uniter getd regulatory approvals from multiple jurisdictions, including India’s Competition Comleave oution.
Reliance pumped $1.4 billion in increaseth capital into the venture, which will handle over 100 TV channels and create 30,000+ hours of annual satisfyed. The united entity increateed revenue of approximately $3.1 billion for the fiscal year 2024.
The ownership arrange shatters down to Reliance Industries hancigo ining 16.34%, Viacom18 with 46.82%, and Disney geting 36.84%. In a split transaction, Reliance getd Paramount Global’s 13.01% sget in Viacom18 for about $507 million.
The joint venture’s guideership team joins Kevin Vaz heading amengagement, Kiran Mani guideing digital operations, and Sanjog Gupta handleing sports. The united entity, which has a cforfeit stranglehancigo in on rights to India’s hugegest audience draw, cricket, boasts a united digital subscription base surpassing 50 million apass JioCinema and Hotstar platcreates. The joint venture hancigo ins a portfolio of sports rights apass cricket, football and other sports.
Mukesh D. Ambani, chair and managing honestor of Reliance Industries Limited, shelp: “With the createation of this JV, the Indian media and amengagement industry is go ining a changeational era. Our proset up creative expertise and relationship with Disney, alengthy with our unaligned empathetic of the Indian devourr will promise unparalleled satisfyed choices at affordable prices for Indian seeers.”
“This is an exciting moment for our two companies, as well as for India’s devourrs, as we create one of the top amengagement entities in the country thraw this joint venture,” shelp Robert A. Iger, CEO, The Walt Disney Company. “By joining forces with Reliance, we are able to broaden our presence in this transport inant media labelet and deinhabitr seeers an even more sturdy portfolio of amengagement, sports satisfyed, and digital services.”
Shankar compriseed: “The recent organization is promiseted to deinhabitr an unpwithdrawnted level of creativity, disruption and recent age devourr experience. As media consumption persists to shift to an fused TV-digital ecosystem, the uniter of Viacom18 and Star India provides a distinctive opportunity to reorient the industry to better serve diverse cohorts of devourrs apass the country. Together, we aim to create India’s bigst fused media platcreate which will deinhabitr unparalleled experiences in creative and exciting ways.”
