Disney Invests in the “Most Challenging” Global Market, Continues Cutting US Disney+ Content

As the Disney+ library hemorrhages content in the US, the Walt Disney Company is in talks to expand its most successful global streaming audience.

Since the Walt Disney Company’s second-quarter earnings call, Disney+ has delivered on its promise to cut content from its library. With former executives like Bob Chapek and Christine McCarthy zeroing in on Disney’s streaming service to inform Park decisions and curtail spending, the company is clearly working out kinks in its streaming strategy.

To deliver on the plan from Disney CEO Bob Iger to cut $5.5 billion cut from Disney’s budget, Disney has quietly canceled several projects over the last two months. Notably, an original film Crater from Disney+ was axed just 48 days after its release. TV shows like “Willow” and projects like John Stamos’s Big Shot have also been on the Disney+ chopping block.

Despite these Disney+ challenges, the platform has seen success in an Asian market, and Reuters reported the family entertainment giant is planning to invest in that audience.

Disney+ Hotstar

The world’s most populous nation, India, has become the focus of Disney’s business ventures. According to The Wall Street Journal, Disney executives have discussed business expansion options with at least one bank while uncovering the cost burden shared.

Disney’s $71 billion-dollar acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019 targeted the Star pay-TV business in India and assets in Asia to assert the lucrative potential of the highly-populated regions. Since the acquisition, Disney+ has become the market leader in streaming with its Disney+ Hotstar service in India. However, Disney has recently found itself in hot water there, too—prompting the initiative to fortify its presence in India.

Swimming Upstream?

Disney recently lost out on the digital rights to steam the ever-popular cricket telecast, impacting its India business numbers in its formerly unwavering success in India. According to WSJ, Disney+ Hotstar India could lose eight to 10 million subscribers by August.

Simultaneously, Disney’s heavy-hitting contender, Jio Cinema, is thriving. Backed by India’s most prosperous businessman Mukesh Ambani, Jio Cinema is part of the Viacom18 cluster, and Disney continues to search for a compatible partner to challenge its dominance in India.

According to Variety, Sony is combatting similar struggles in the Indian market, but Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is in no rush to win over Star with Max. On the contrary, WBD is joining forces with Disney’s competitor: Jio Cinema. Apparently, it really is a small world after all.