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Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) is reportedly exploring strategic options for Star India — once a key part of the company’s Fox media assets acquisition that has struggled after a change in cricket fortunes.
The company has engaged in early-stage talks with at least one bank about how to help its India business grow while sharing costs somehow, whether that includes a joint venture or a sale of the operation, the WSJ reported.
Star India was an important part of Disney’s plan to build its streaming business globally, and it came over in a $71.3B deal in 2019 for Fox’s entertainment assets. In particular, it gave Disney lucrative broadcast and streaming rights for Indian Premier League cricket.
But Disney lost a bidding war to keep streaming those matches to Viacom18, and that hurt growth at streaming service Hotstar — now expected to lose 8M-10M subscribers in its third quarter, according to the report.
Meanwhile, an already low average revenue per subscriber has been falling alongside the user decline. Hotstar generated ARPU of $0.59 in the April quarter, down from a peak of $1.20 in summer 2022, the report noted.
