Disney creates a streaming platform dedicated to Bollywood

The new service will host the contents of Hotstar, the current Disney Star Studio platform formerly known as Star India. The launch is scheduled for next year

(Image: Gabriele Porro / Wired) Disney is working to launch a new streaming platform entirely dedicated to products from the media company Star India, one of the many companies acquired by that of Mickey Mouse, which also includes the Hotstar streaming service.

Disney already has control of Hulu and Espn Plus which, together with Disney +, have brought over 100 million subscribers worldwide, 60 of which coming only from the last mentioned.

According to Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Chapek, the streaming platform dedicated to the Bollywood universe - currently hosted on Hotstar - will be launched in 2021. "In terms of worldwide entertainment offerings," he explains, "we want to follow the successful strategy used for Disney + by relying on the same platform from a technical point of view, introducing the contents we already own and distributing them with an international brand that works, in fact, Star ".

Disney, therefore, intends to create a" technical clone "of Disney + with the task of hosting content from Disney Star Studio overseas, the brand created in 2019 after the acquisition of Star India, and its HotStar streaming service.

The creation of a new platform for non-native Disney streaming content could, however, trigger an internal conflict between the newly born Star and the veteran Hulu. As Chapek told The Verge, "Hulu aggregates third-party products, but there is no brand awareness outside the United States."

The motivation that would push Disney to create a new streaming platform in place to bring together all of the content on Hulu would be, therefore, related to its lack of popularity outside of the United States . That's why the company would choose to provide users with a service for another with a brand, the more familiar , rather than risk losing them.