Technology and cricket big wins for billionaire Ambani in Disney tie-up

investing.com:

By Munsif Vengattil and M. Sriram

BENGALURU (Reuters) — A Disney-Reliance assets merger in India will create a media giant far bigger than all its rivals, boosting billionaire Mukesh Ambani's entertainment ambitions with streaming tech prowess and lucrative cricket rights.

Disney and Reliance on Wednesday put a value on their joint TV and streaming assets business of $8.5 billion. Ambani's Reliance and its affiliates will own more than 63% of the merged entity, with Disney owning 37%.

The merged group, boasting 120 channels and two streaming platforms, will be India's no. 1 TV player, followed by home-grown Zee Entertainment which has 50 TV channels in India's thriving $28 billion media and entertainment market.

In streaming, Disney's Hotstar is India's largest with 38 million paid users. Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Prime Video do not disclose their India numbers, but industry analysts estimate they have 20 million and 6.5 million paid users, respectively.

Reliance's JioCinema is largely free and doesn't disclose user numbers, having started a premium paid offering just last year.

As its rivalry with Disney grew before the merger, Reliance heavily promoted JioCinema, instantly becoming popular with its free cricket streaming offers. But it also faced user ire on social media for regular technology glitches.

«India's media industry has historically not invested much in tech innovation. Reliance will gain from the streaming and cloud-related tech innovations of Hotstar,» said Shashi Shekhar Vempati, former CEO of Indian state-run broadcaster Prasar Bharati.

«Hotstar is ahead of JioCinema on many aspects of tech. It is better at making intelligent viewing recommendations based on a user's watching