Hotstar

Description

Star India launched Hotstar in February 2015, at first as a streaming destination for the content Star offers on its broadcast television channels — Indian soap operas, reality shows, news and live sports from the Star Sports network. The timing had Hotstar perfectly positioned to capture the boom in smartphone adoption and mobile data consumption that followed Reliance Jio’s low-cost data rollout in India from 2016 onwards. By 2018, Hotstar became the most downloaded app in India and one of the most used streaming services in the world with peak concurrent viewers during Indian Premier League cricket matches surpassing the viewership of the Super Bowl.

The Walt Disney Company’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019 introduced Star India and Hotstar to the Disney family. Disney integrated its content into the service and rebranded it Disney+ Hotstar in April 2020, combining Hollywood studio content, Disney and Pixar films, Marvel, Star Wars, and the National Geographic library with the Indian cricket, local language content and Star television programming that had built Hotstar’s audience.

Live Sports — IPL and Cricket

IPL (Indian Premier League) cricket live streaming made Hotstar the dominant sports streaming service in India. Hotstar has exclusive digital rights to IPL matches, which fuels a lot of subscription and viewership activity during the period of the matches which takes place from March to May every year. Beyond IPL, the service broadcasts international cricket such as ICC tournaments, Test matches, and bilateral series, the Pro Kabaddi League, ISL football, Wimbledon and other sporting events depending on the rights available each season.

Disney+ Content Library

Disney+ Hotstar Premium subscribers get access to the entire Disney+ content: Disney animated movies and series, Pixar movies, Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and Disney+ original series, Star Wars movies and series, National Geographic documentaries, and 20th Century Studios theatrical releases. Hotstar Specials — original series produced for or exclusively licensed to the platform — include Indian language drama, thriller and comedy series.

Star India Television Content

The service airs catch-up episodes and complete series of Star India’s broadcast channels including Star Plus, Star Vijay, Star Maa, Star Jalsha and Asianet, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali language programming. Star World offers access to international English language television series licensed through the Star network.

Multi-Language Support

Content availability in regional Indian languages caters to the linguistically diverse audience in India. Subtitle options include multiple Indian languages for English and Hindi content and the browsing interface localizes to the user’s language preference. Regional language content libraries include entertainment specific to Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Bengal.

Download for Offline Viewing

Premium and Mobile subscribers download select content for offline playback during times when they have no internet access. Downloaded content plays in the app for a license period before expiring. The download feature is aimed at users in areas where internet connection is intermittent and those who like to watch content while traveling.

Subscription Tiers

The free tier offers access to some Star television content and some sports streaming with advertisements. The Mobile tier is a lower-cost subscription that is limited to mobile devices. Disney+ Hotstar Premium offers complete access to the Disney+ library, ad-free watching of eligible content and high-definition streaming on all supported devices. During IPL Season the ability to watch live matches without ads requires Premium.

Device Casting

Content casts from the mobile app to supported televisions and streaming devices using Chromecast, AirPlay and direct Smart TV app support. The Smart TV app is available on Samsung, LG, Sony and other Smart TV platforms, as well as Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV.

Parental Controls

Parental controls are used to set content rating limits and require a PIN to access content above a set rating. The controls are applied per profile, so that you can have adult profiles with full content access and restricted profiles for children.