K Madhavan appointed new country manager of Disney and Star India
Prior to this, Madhavan has served as managing director of Asianet Communications Ltd and vice-president of the Indian Broadcasting FoundationVideo consumption has tripled since 2018, with the number of video viewers increasing 1.5 times and the time spent per viewer doubling
NEW DELHI : K. Madhavan has been named the new country manager for Star and Disney India, an executive of the company confirmed on Friday. Madhavan who joins in the new role from 1 January, was serving as managing director, south business, Star India. He takes over from Sanjay Gupta who will be moving on to Google India as its new country manager and vice-president of sales and operations.
Walt Disney had acquired Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc. in a $71 billion cash and stock deal in June 2018. That makes Star India, Fox Star Studios and Hotstar in India, a part of Walt Disney.
Prior to this, Madhavan has served as managing director of Asianet Communications Ltd and vice-president of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation. He will report to Uday Shankar, president, the Walt Disney Company APAC, and chairman, Star and Disney India.
The Star and Disney entities that are yet to be fully integrated in India, are in anticipation of the arrival of Disney’s new video streaming service, Disney+ to the country. The original content created for the new OTT (over-the-top) service and its movie library will be routed to Indian audiences through Hotstar, the video streaming service owned by Star India.
Hotstar has registered over 400 million downloads in 2019, with twice the number of installs as last year and 555 installs per minute according to India Watch Report 2019, a study of online video consumption behaviour and trends released by the service this Tuesday.
Video consumption has tripled since 2018, with the number of video viewers increasing 1.5 times and the time spent per viewer doubling.
Non-metros made up 63% to the total entertainment video consumption on Hotstar in 2019, busting the myth that video streaming is meant for the elite in the country’s biggest cities.
The figure has risen dramatically from 54% in 2018. Further, the growth in time spent per viewer this year compared to last was 2x in non-metros versus 1.6x for metros. Lucknow, Pune and Patna have beaten metros like Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Kolkata in video consumption over the year.
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