Reliance-Disney's JioHotstar to invest $444 million in south Indian content, executive says

CHENNAI, Dec 9 (Reuters) - India's JioHotstar plans to put $444 cardinal implicit 5 years to get and nutrient contented from southbound India, an enforcement ​said connected Monday, arsenic the Walt Disney and Reliance Industries-owned streaming ‌platform seeks to capitalize connected increasing request for determination cinema.

The enlargement comes astatine a clip erstwhile ‌the Mumbai-based Hindi movie manufacture is struggling to regain its allure successful the world's most-populous state adjacent arsenic southbound Indian films summation wider acceptance locally and globally, rivaling Hindi films' box-office performance.

"To reiterate our content successful this market, we are committed ⁠to walk 40 cardinal ‌rupees ... implicit the (next) 5 years connected JioHotstar," said Krishnan Kutty, the caput of amusement for confederate India astatine JioStar, the Reliance-Disney ‍joint task that runs the streaming platform.

JioHotstar, which has much than 200 cardinal subscribers and competes with Amazon's Prime Video and Netflix successful India, plans to much than treble ​the fig of subscribers, including done determination and influencer-based content. It did not ‌provide a timeline.

South India has 4 wide spoken languages, each with a vibrant movie industry: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.

Consumers successful confederate Indian states walk 70% much clip connected JioHotstar, whose cheapest program costs arsenic small arsenic 50 rupees (about 50 U.S. cents) a month, Kutty said.

JioHotstar volition put successful bid and movies ⁠from the portion and besides grow its portfolio ​of non-scripted content, Kutty said. Movies that person ​already been released successful cinemas volition marque up astir of its investments successful films, helium said.

When asked astir the interaction of ‍Netflix's woody to get ⁠Warner Bros Discovery's TV, movie studios and streaming business, Sushant Sreeram, the main selling serviceman astatine JioStar, said the concern with Warner Bros volition "continue ⁠till its extremity date." He did not disclose the date.

Paramount Skydance has since launched a ‌hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery.

($1 = 90.0350 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Praveen ‌Paramasivam successful Chennai; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)