Disney looking to sell or partner with others for India business

Sources claim that Walt Disney is considering options to sell or partner with another company in a joint venture for its digital and TV operations in India. 

It is still unclear how the negotiations will proceed because they are still in their very early stages and because no prospective partners or buyers have been approached.

Reporters were told by sources that internal discussions on what to do had started. The source further stated that executives at Disney's American headquarters were driving the discussions.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to break the news of Disney's talks, reporting that the company had approached at least one bank about ways to help the India business grow while sharing some of the expenditures.

The discussions take place at a time when Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in Asia, and Reliance Industries' JioCinema streaming platform have emerged, putting pressure on Disney. By providing free access to the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, whose digital rights were previously held by Disney, he has been promoting his streaming platform.

CLSA estimates that after losing the digital rights to the IPL, Disney+ Hotstar's subscriber base in India shrank by nearly 5 million users.

In April, Warner Bros. and Reliance's broadcast company, Viacom 18, which operates JioCinema, agreed to a deal for HBO and other popular programming like Succession. Several of these highly regarded programs had previously aired on the Disney platform in India.

Reliance, Paramount Global, and Bodhi Tree, a partnership between James Murdoch and a former Star India executive, Uday Shankar, are among the shareholders in Viacom18.