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Product cover image for Entertainment Mergers: Can Jiohotstar Bring Together Reliance Industries and Disney+ Hotstar to Lead the Market?

Entertainment Mergers: Can Jiohotstar Bring Together Reliance Industries and Disney+ Hotstar to Lead the Market?

Anindo Bhattacharjee, Boishampayan Chatterjee, Ch Siddharth Nanda

Product #:W44651
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:Marketing, Strategy
Setting:India, 2024
Details:Case (PDF) • 12 pages • 2025-09-10

Subjects:

Sales and marketingMarketingStrategy

Industries:

Media, entertainment, and professional sports

Geography:

IndiaAsia
Your Price:$10.54

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Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), its broadcast division Viacom 18 Media Private Limited (Viacom18), and The Walt Disney Company (Disney) completed a merger on November 14, 2024. In doing so, RIL merged its media assets with the India’s Disney global media house business in a transaction that valued the joint venture (JV) at US$8.5 billion, in which RIL had invested $1.4 billion. The deal involved merging JioCinema, operated by Viacom18, with Star India Private Limited (Star India), which was part of Disney. RIL held a 16.34 per cent stake in the JV, with its Viacom18 division holding 46.82 per cent, and Disney holding the remaining 36.84 per cent. The JV provided a leading television and digital streaming platform for entertainment and sports content in India that combined iconic media assets, such as Colors TV, StarPlus, Star Gold Network, Star Sports Network, and Sports18 Network. The combination of the Star India entities and Colors on the television (TV) side and JioCinema and Hotstar (owned by Star India) on the digital front provided an extensive choice of content across entertainment and sports for viewers. With over 750 million viewers across India and the Indian diaspora, the JV aimed to lead the digital transformation of the media and entertainment industry. Viacom18 and Star India’s combination of media expertise, cutting-edge technology, and diverse content libraries enabled the JV to offer more appealing domestic and global entertainment content and sports live-streaming services at affordable prices. The addition of Disney’s acclaimed films and shows provided a compelling, accessible, and novel digital-focused entertainment experience. With such a significant JV, could RIL reposition itself and become a leader among the over-the-top (OTT) platforms in India? What appropriate segmentation strategies could it adopt to tackle prominent OTT competitors in India?

Learning Objectives

This case is intended for use in undergraduate- and MBA-level courses in marketing management and business strategy. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to:
  • Discuss how a company like RIL can manage to sustain itself in developing economies like India with a highly competitive market through creating a digital ecosystem.
  • Critically assess whether an acquisition and platform strategy is essential for JioCinema to compete in a highly fragmented content-streaming market.
  • Understand the role that acquisition of Disney+ Hotstar by JioCinema will play in RIL’s overall customer retention strategy.
  • Discuss the new challenges JioCinema will face following its acquisition of Disney+ Hotstar to maintain its sustainable competitive advantage by serving the entire market of digital content streaming and OTT.
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Case Study: Entertainment Mergers: Can Jiohotstar Bring Together Reliance Industries and Disney+ Hotstar to Lead the Market? (English version) | Ivey Publishing