Disney+ is no longer available in India, hours after going live via Hotstar. Just like its ‘early’ and unannounced rollout came as a huge surprise for Hotstar users on Wednesday, its ‘sudden’ exit has left many questions. Could it all have been a mistake? Could it be that Hotstar was merely testing the online streaming waters – sort of like a beta test – before making Disney+ officially official in India in the days to come.
Update: Turns out, it’s the latter. Hotstar has confirmed to Financial Express Online that it is currently beta testing the Disney+Hotstar app in India. Disney+ will officially launch in India as per schedule on March 29.
“A limited release of the beta version of the Disney+ Hotstar app is currently being tested with a small number of consumers, in preparation for the full-fledged app launch on 29th March,” a Hotstar spokesperson said in a statement given out to Financial Express Online via email.
Disney+ was scheduled to go official in India on March 29 – this was something confirmed on record by former Disney CEO Robert Iger in November last year. Uday Shankar, who is president of The Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific, and chairman of Star India and The Walt Disney Company India, is meanwhile expected to reveal more details about the service at an event in Mumbai on March 13.
But the service already went live on March 11 for many users (including myself), a good three weeks before its official launch, in India. As it turns out now, only briefly, as ‘literally’ everything has been taken down now. This includes all Disney+ content and branding as well – it’s like Disney+ never even existed on Hotstar.
Hotstar had been silently updating its app and logo ahead of Disney+ India launch. Both the things were updated briefly on Wednesday to ‘highlight’ Disney+ was now available in India. Hotstar had rebranded the app as Disney+Hotstar – with Disney+ content resting inside a separate tab in the Hotstar app for both iOS and Android. The content layout was reminiscent of the original service that has been available in the US since November last year.
An interesting thing to note about the brief Disney+ appearance on Hotstar was the absence of any dedicated price tiers to use the service. This meant, all Hotstar Premium users could access all Disney+ content including a back catalogue of popular Disney films and cartoons (especially from the 90s) plus an exhaustive collection of originals including critically acclaimed The Mandalorian, at no extra cost. Content was available in core English as well as local languages like Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. It was also possible to download content.
Whether or not Hostar updates its pricing strategy as and when Disney+ formally arrives in India is something only time will tell.
Interestingly, if you’re a Hotstar Premium subscriber and you last viewed Disney+ content while it was live in India, you can continue watching it for some reason even though Disney+ has literally vanished from the Hotstar app!
