Star India to remove channels from US pay-TV providers
Details
Michelle Clancy
| 19 December 2018

Indian broadcaster Star India, one of the country’s one of India's largest media conglomerates, plans to go digital-only in the US, led by its over-the-top (OTT) streaming platform, Hotstar.

The networks that will no longer be available to its US-based pay-TV carriers include Dish TV, Sling TV, Comcast and Verizon.

Currently the most popular subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platform in India, the SVOD platform was launched in India in early 2015 offering 100,000 hours of drama and films in 17 languages, as well as coverage – in India – of major global sporting events such as ICC and IPL cricket. The service began brodcasting in the US in September 2017.

“We strongly feel that, in the US, a digital-only approach would best suit the market, and therefore we have decided to make all channels of the Star India Network available exclusively on our digital streaming platform Hotstar,” Star India told Indiantelevision.com.

On 18 December, the broadcaster’s Star Sports broadcast the Indian Premier League 2019 player auction live in four languages, as India gears up for the next edition of its high octane T20 cricket league.

The auction, held in Jaipur, was broadcast in Hindi, English, Tamil and Telugu. Last year’s IPL player auction drew 46.5 million viewers on the Star Sports network.