Mukesh Ambani—the second richest man in India and Asia—is known for taking no prisoners. Ask Amazon, which got blindsided by Reliance Industries' stealth takeover of Future Retail stores. Or the many telecom operators that fell like dominoes in the face of the Reliance Jio onslaught. Or even Anil Ambani, whose fortunes nosedived after the clash with his big brother over the KG-D6 gas. Disney+Hotstar is now getting a taste of the Mukesh-Ambani medicine. Two jolts in the past few months have set the alarm bells ringing at the OTT platform, the largest in India, at least so far, with 90 million paid subscribers. First, Viacom 18, a Reliance arm, bolted away at the auctions with Disney+Hotstar's crown jewel—the digital-streaming rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL), the most-popular cricket tournament in the world. Next, a few days ago, Reliance Jio suddenly pulled the plug on most of its streaming bundles with Disney+Hotstar. That's more or less the finito for the fairytale Reliance-Disney collaboration. But why is Reliance doing what it is doing? In our today's fascinating story how friends have turned rivals. And all is fair in the now-streaming OTT war that Viacom18 seeks to dominate. It's up against the mighty competition: Disney+Hotstar, Amazon, Netflix, Sony-Zee5, et al. But this Ambani challenger is not short of ambition, money, or killer instinct.
