No IPL, No F1, And Now No HBO, Disney+ Hotstar To Stop Streaming HBO Shows From March 31

HBO shows will no longer be available for streaming on Hotstar for Disney+ users in India starting March 31. According to recent reports, the agreement between HBO and Disney+Hotstar in India is ending; therefore, the app will no longer offer the former's content.

Owing to this move, the streaming service in India will no longer have access to HBO originals shows such as The Last of Us, Game of Thrones, Perry Mason, House of Dragons, The White Lotus, Big Little Lies, Curb Your Enthusiasm and many others. As a result, Hotstar is likely to be affected by the loss of HBO's premium offerings because it built its South Asian client base on the foundation of cricket as well as the international content.

Recently, the IPL and F1 streaming rights in the nation were also taken away from the massive on-demand video streaming company owned by Disney. Hotstar lost to Mukesh Ambani's Reliance when it came to IPL media rights whereas Formula 1’s OTT Platform F1 TV took over streaming right for F1 from Disney+Hotstar. Additionally, in the past two years, Disney has undertaken broader adjustments within the firm and dramatically reduced the spendings on Hotstar. This included not renewing the rights for Formula One as well.

Hotstar, one of the most well-liked streaming services in India, was formerly a part of Star India. Ajit Mohan was in charge of Hotstar when it decided to wager on cricket streaming at a point when very few Indians were live-streaming any material.

The wager paid off: The company spent hundreds of millions to obtain the rights to stream the IPL cricket tournament, broke all previous records for live streaming, and solidified its position as the jewel in Disney's $71 billion acquisition of Fox with tens of millions of customers.

The HBO library that is accessible to India is streamed on Disney + Hotstar since 2016. Further, according to rumours, HBO Max won't be available in India any time soon, and the content will probably end up on another streaming service like Amazon Prime Video or something similar. Although Hotstar still has roughly 50 million customers, after this recent change, it might have trouble even keeping them.

Let’s check out how the subscribers have reacted to the tweet below:

A user named Dhaval Patel expressed his frustration on the update and said:

“@DisneyPlusHS @hotstar_helps How one can get refund, if subscribed for whole year? Without F1, HBO, why would even I continue to pay? Please share the procedure to initiate refund, as I want to terminate subscription.”

Another user by the name of Jatin Vanzara wrote:

HBO content is the sole reason I bought Disney+Hotstar @DisneyPlusHS @hotstar_helps, removing it after 31 March is straight unfair, I demand for refund or some other form of compensation @HBO @hbomax @HBOMaxHelp @hotstar_helps @starindia @Disney @DisneyPlus @DisneyIndia

Another user, Kaushik Varma expressed his sadness by saying:

Last day to catch HBO content on @DisneyPlusHS: March 31st No F1, no IPL, no HBO. Rough year for Hotstar #DisneyPlus