The merged company, majority-owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance, would control cricket broadcast rights, sparking concerns over pricing power and dominance in advertising.
Reliance will infuse $1.4 billion in the merged entity, with the company and its affiliates holding a more than 63% stake. Disney will hold about 37%, the companies said in a joint statement.
A record 518 million viewers from India watched matches during 48-day event on TV, while Disney’s streaming app recorded a peak concurrent viewership of 59 million during finals.
Reliance values Disney's India assets, which comprises the Disney+ Hotstar streaming service and Star India, at between $7 billion and $8 billion, the report said.
The India streaming operations, which were Disney's biggest last year globally by users, posted a loss of $41.5 million on revenue of $390 million for the year to March 2022.
Disney also announced it would launch ad-supported streaming in Europe, Canada and provide US subscribers with a new, ad-free package in coming months.
Disney in India has gone to court in what is the latest and most high-profile challenge to Google's policy of imposing a 'service fee' of 11-26% on in-app payments.
Canada faces serious foreign interference issues, but these challenges must not be weaponized to unfairly target friendly and important allies like India.
In Episode 1544 of CutTheClutter, Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta looks at some top economists pointing to the pitfalls of ‘currency nationalism’ with data from 1991 to 2004.
Among 19 Indian firms sanctioned by US Treasury Dept was Lokesh Machines Ltd accused of coordinating with 'Russian defence procurement agent to import Italy-origin CNC machines'.
While we talk much about our military, we don’t put our national wallet where our mouth is. Nobody is saying we should double our defence spending, but current declining trend must be reversed.
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