Disney+ Hotstar is joining the Disney streaming bundle as the service prepares to shut down as a standalone platform in the U.S. in late 2022, Disney said on Tuesday.
The content available on Hotstar will be divided between Hulu and ESPN+. Bollywood and South Asian films, including Hotstar specials like The Empire, Aarya, Criminal Justice and Dil Bechara, will head to Hulu. Cricket matches, which remain the most-watched content on Hotstar, from the Indian Premier League, International Cricket Council Men’s T20 World Cup and Board of Control for Cricket will stream live on ESPN+.
Disney+ will remain unchanged and will not subsume any programming from Hotstar at this time, Disney said.
The Disney streaming bundle, which gives subscribers access to Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ beginning at $13.99 a month, will also remain the same price after Hotstar’s content is migrated over. As a standalone, Hotstar currently costs $49.99 a year in the U.S.
Disney acquired Hotstar in 2019 through its $71.3 billion deal for most of 20th Century Fox’s assets. The streaming service, available in different iterations in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S., was rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar in 2020.
Hotstar currently accounts for roughly 40 percent of the total 116 million users who subscriber to Disney+, Christine McCarthy, Disney’s chief financial officer, said during the company’s latest quarterly earnings call in August. Hotstar also accounted for the majority of Disney+’s net subscriber additions during the second and third quarters of this year, McCarthy said.
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