Telecommunications services provider Bharti Airtel on Monday said it partnered with Hotstar to bring the video streaming platform's content to its Airtel TV app. With the new partnership, Airtel TV will now have access to 350 plus LIVE TV channels and over 10,000 popular movies and shows from India and abroad, among others.
Hotstar’s content from 22 channels and over 3000 hit movies and shows will also be available to all Airtel customers for free through the app. The Airtel TV app will also be free for Airtel Prepaid and Postpaid customers till June 2018.
The latest partnership by Airtel follows a string of content deals with streaming service providers such as Amazon Prime, Eros Now, and video-on-demand service SonyLIV.
The deal will help Hotstar in expanding its footprint in India, on the back of Airtel’s massive mobile customer base.
“Airtel has among the widest consumer footprints in India and with our expansive content library, comprising rich programming that can cater across age groups, geographies and interests, there are natural synergies,” said Ajit Mohan, chief executive, Hotstar in a statement.
The war for digital content is heating up between telcos, and the Sunil Mittal-led Airtel is aggressively pushing new deals in the space. In January, rival Reliance Jio, led by Mukesh Ambani, signed an original content deal with ALTBalaji, which will make the OTT platform’s content available on RJio’s digital platforms.
The Hotstar catalogue available to Airtel TV users will also include shows from channels across multiple genres, popular movies and shows in Hindi and regional languages like Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu. The customers also get access to Hotstar’s library of sports content and LIVE matches — one of the most popular and sought after content on streaming service provider, the companies said in a statement.
“Their rich content library will add immense value to our content play and add to the user experience. We will continue to bring exciting content and in-app innovations to delight them,” Sameer Batra, chief executive, Wynk said.
The stock price of Bharti Airtel closed at Rs424, up 0.53%, on Monday at the BSE.
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