hotstar
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|
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Type of site
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Video on demand |
|---|---|
| Available in | Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali |
| Headquarters | Mumbai, Maharashtra |
| Area served | India |
| Owner | Star India (21st Century Fox) |
| Industry | Streaming |
| Services | On-demand video streaming |
| Slogan(s) | Go Solo |
| Website | www |
| Alexa rank |  355 (April 2016[update]) [1] |
| Launched | February, 2015 |
| Current status | Active |
Hotstar (stylized as hotstar) is a digital and mobile entertainment platform, owned by Novi Digital Entertainment Private Limited (formerly known as Indya Interactive Services Private Limited), a wholly owned subsidiary of Star India.[2][3]
Contents
History[edit]
After the beta version of ‘hotstar.com’ went live in January 2015, Star India officially launched hotstar in February 2015, right before the 2015 Cricket World Cup. At the beginning, it was intended to serve as a mobile application that would support streaming of the Cricket World Cup with some entertainment content. However, hotstar expanded its offering with 35,000 hours of content, spread across 8 languages from the entertainment, movie and sports channels owned by Star India.[4]
Recently, Star India hired Varun Narang, a former executive of US online video service Hulu to head the product and technology division at hotstar.[5] Hotstar also hired iRock Production's Siddhartha Jain as the creative director for original content, as it is hell-bent to develop original content.[6]
Content Viewers[edit]
Viewers can watch all the shows aired on the Star channels a day later on hotstar. The app also offers videos from cricket tournaments and other professional sporting leagues like Pro Kabaddi League and Indian Super League. For TV shows, hotstar features latest and classic episodes from television shows on its group channels (content partners) like Star Plus, Life OK, Channel V, Asianet, Asianet Plus, Asianet Suvarna, Maa TV, and Star Vijay, Star Jalsha, and Star Pravah amongst others. English dramas and serials that premiere internationally and are showcased on Star World, are also featured on hotstar.
Hotstar also streams Game of Thrones and other exclusive HBO serials which are not offered by Netflix or any other similar provider.
Many exclusive digital shows like Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? Ek Jashan, On Air with AIB, etc... has been put up on hotstar.
The app enables users to download content to their devices to watch it later offline, especially devices with slower 2G internet connections i.e. 64 kbit/s.
Viewership[edit]
The app garnered 340 million views for all 49 matches during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 and over 200 million views during the Indian Premier League Season 8, this year.[7] With over 50 million downloads, hotstar has more than 100 advertisers on the platform [1]. Since the content is available free of cost to the users, Star India aims at monetizing solely through advertising.[8] Some cricket talk shows like Juicy Half Volley (A World Cup Weekly Wrap-up) has been put exclusively on hotstar.
Platforms[edit]
In addition to the website, Hotstar is available as an application across mobile devices which are on Android, iOS and Apple TV[9] platforms. Hotstar can run on about 7,000 variations of operating systems and screen sizes. Hotstar Android application is currently available in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh.[10]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "hotstar.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-08-14.
- ^ 04 February 2016 (2016-02-04). "What Wikipedia cannot Tell you about hotstar.com - Shashank Kamath's Analysis". Awordtotheworld.com. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
- ^ Hotstar celebrates its First Birthday http://awordtotheworld.com/what-wikipedia-cant-tell-you-about-hotstar-com
- ^ "How Hotstar Is Winning The ICC WorldCup For Star Sports With Its Content Marketing". 2015-03-11. Retrieved 2015-08-14.
- ^ "Star India hires Hulu exec for Hotstar streaming service". 2015-07-21. Retrieved 2015-08-14.
- ^ http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/news/16563179/iRocks-Siddhartha-Jain-roped-in-as-creative-director-by-Hotstar
- ^ "Hotstar notches up 200 million views in IPL 8". 2015-06-05. Retrieved 2015-08-14.
- ^ "With Hotstar, Star India aims to change the way content is consumed in India". 2015-02-11. Retrieved 2015-08-14.
- ^ "Hotstar selected as App of the Year for India in 2016 on Apple". Tech2. 2016-12-13. Retrieved 2016-12-16.
- ^ "10 million users in 40 days: Hotstar takes digital media world by storm". Business Standard. 21 March 2015. Retrieved 8 August 2015.
