Hotstar Pushes Disney+ India Launch Date Indefinitely and It's All Thanks To IPL 2020 and COVID-19 - Here's Why
As IPL 2020 got delayed until April 15, Disney+ decided to halt its official release on Hotstar for the Indian audiences.
The Indian fans of Disney+ shows are in for sad news. While it was earlier announced that all the Disney+ content will be available on Hotstar for the Indian audiences, the wait for the same may get longer. The new streaming service was earlier supposed to be launched on March 29 in India, however, following the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent postponement of IPL 2020 led Disney to delay its launch. The new date for the content to be available online is still awaited. Disney Plus Removed From Hotstar as the OTT Platform Was Only Testing the Beta Version.
In a statement released by Disney, APAC president and Star & Disney India chairman Uday Shankar said, “We recently announced that Disney+ would launch in India through the Hotstar service in conjunction with beginning of the Indian Premier League cricket season. Given the delay of the season, we have made the decision to briefly pause the roll-out of Disney+ and will announce a new revised premiere date for the service soon.” The statement also confirmed that Hotstar has paused the weekly rollout of the new Disney content in India. Coronavirus Effect: Disney Postpones the Release of Mulan, New Mutants and Antlers, New Dates to be Announced Later.
With the new situation, you can watch all the Disney+ originals released between November 2019 (original launch) and March 6 (the last Friday before its early India arrival) on Hotstar, however, anything new that's been launched on Disney+ official platform won't be available until April 15 or should we say until IPL starts to Indian viewers. And given the seriousness of the scenario currently, guess the already long wait will become longer.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 20, 2020 05:25 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).