HBO's Loss Means Game Of Groans For Disney+ Hotstar (But Not Much Else)

This week, we're looking at the impending Disney+ Hotstar and HBO split from both sides of the divide. First, OTTplay's contributing writer Prahlad Srihari makes a case for why a subscription to the streaming service, without the benefit of either IPL or access to shows du jour like Succession, offers slim pickings (read here). From " MUBI for movies, Hotstar for HBO", Srihari says the mantra is now "Time to Mulan or move on!" . In a counterpoint, our featured writer Manik Sharma argues that in the larger Indian context, HBO's loss will make only a small ripple, and that Disney+ Hotstar's true opportunities for growth lie elsewhere (spoiler: think hyperlocal).

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MONDAYS ARE DOWNERS BY DEFAULT, but waking up to one where everyone in the world has already seen the new episode of The Single Greatest TV Show Of All Time — the very episode that you can’t — is exponentially more hurtful. I’m obviously talking about the global phenomenon that is Succession. For those of us in India, this latest (and final) season is a cold reminder that despite streaming’s ubiquitousness, your favourite shows can still be kept from you — despite having paid for them in advance. (Sounds a lot like life!)

The HBO library’s removal from Disney+ Hotstar effective April 2023 has had many declaring this the death blow for the streaming service — just when it appeared as though it would stand, albeit bruised and bloody, after losing the streaming rights for IPL (and 3.8 million subscribers) last year. The HBO exit comes at a time when the premium television network is all set to take the global audience by storm. HBO loyalists, who steadfastly wait for the network’s immaculate content drip, have engaged in some naïve speculation on social media: Couldn’t Disney+ Hotstar have signed a two-month extension to broadcast this last Succession season? Or make some sort of exception for this one show? Still others conjectured that the move fit in with Disney’s plans to ultimately subsume and bury Hotstar’s identity altogether.

First things first: people will obviously find a way to watch Succession, the same way they watched content from HBO, AMC, BBC and all the big players from around the world, before streaming in this country made roundabout methods redundant. Let’s just leave the details of what these methods entail/ed to the digital natives who seem bemused by the level of alarm and indignation over Hotstar’s loss. Second, while HBO’s exit will be a setback for the streamer, the subscriber exodus is unlikely to be anywhere close to the one triggered by the lack of IPL.

The fact is that premium English content is a largely urban phenomenon that guarantees well-heeled subscribers but can hardly drive mass growth for a platform. Beyond a certain number, the aristocracy of content buckets like HBO, BBC and their ilk is a tough — even improbable — sell. Moreover, the same section of subscribers have signed up for multiple platforms between them i.e. you’ve probably already got the people you could get. Not for nothing has Netflix struggled to expand in a supposedly ‘billion-user’ market that simply does not exist. Access to the internet and the capacity to pay for its meaningful use are two separate things, as most streamers have learned.

The second part of this debate must contend itself with the demands of the demographic that you are looking to serve. Regional OTT platforms are booming, with the likes of HoiChoi and Aha, posting numbers that would make Hindi-listening-English-speaking executives in Mumbai squirm. The future might just lie away from the fragile leverage of licensing a popular American studio’s content, which bogs you down as a placeholder rather than a self-regarding platform. There is also evidence that backs this seemingly suspicious act of downing arms in the face of a cultural war. A recent Ormax report that christened Amazon Prime Video’s Farzi as the most-watched show in streaming history, kind of justifies Disney+ Hotstar’s cynical but smart move to cut the chaff of prestige and concentrate instead on the core principles of mastering the regional market. Something that the platform has already — to an extent — aced. Of the top 10 shows listed in the Ormax report, five belonged to Disney+ Hotstar. Interestingly, they aren’t even the best that platform has produced.

Three of these five shows are adaptations of international IPs. Which simply means that global stories can travel better with the assistance of hyperlocal vehicles. Contrary to perception, Disney+ Hotstar’s adaptations of international shows (most recently, The Night Manager) have worked well, underlining two facts at once: Not everyone, unlike us critics, is squeamish about adaptations of popular franchises. More importantly, not everyone has actually watched these originals in the pre-streaming age. At least three of these ‘most-watched’ Hotstar shows were released well after the platform lost IPL rights. Thus, the numbers may have dwindled, but the hit-rate is still impressive.

It’s difficult to estimate what’s in the pipeline for the embattled platform at the moment, but Disney+ Hotstar is light years away from being labelled deadweight yet. It still hosts Marvel, the beast everyone is trying to compete with; Star’s acutely domestic platter of a seemingly bygone era (TV channels); and can apparently pay for a high-profile film release every once in a while. Granted, the last tactic has been hit and miss, but it still endows the platform with scope to locally expand into. Not to mention, the benefit to your bottomline when you’re not coughing up audacious sums for a licensing deal that gives you fleeting numbers and secondhand prestige, but not much else. The HBO stumbling block might in fact be the head-clearing smack that Disney+ Hotstar has needed in a while. As they say, it’s always darkest before dawn.