Warner Bros. Dis­cov­ery’s decision to split its stream­ing and stu­dio busi­ness from its tra­di­tional TV net­works may give a fresh push to its digital plans in India—but grow­ing in the coun­try’s crowded and price-sens­it­ive OTT mar­ket won’t be easy.

Under the restruc­tur­ing, Global Net­works will house enter­tain­ment, sports and news tele­vi­sion brands such as CNN and Dis­cov­ery, along with digital products includ­ing the dis­cov­ery+ stream­ing plat­form. The newly formed Stream­ing & Stu­dios entity will com­prise Warner Bros. Motion Pic­ture Group and DC Stu­dios, which will con­tinue releas­ing their films the­at­ric­ally in India.

David Zaslav, pres­id­ent and chief exec­ut­ive officer of Warner Bros. Dis­cov­ery, said in a global release, “By oper­at­ing as two dis­tinct and optim­ised com­pan­ies, we are empower­ing these brands with the sharper focus and stra­tegic flex­ib­il­ity they need to com­pete most effect­ively in today’s evolving media land­scape.”

”This sep­ar­a­tion will invig­or­ate each com­pany by enabling them to lever­age their strengths and spe­cific fin­an­cial pro­files. This will also allow each com­pany to pur­sue import­ant invest­ment oppor­tun­it­ies and drive share­holder value,” added chief fin­an­cial officer Gun­nar Wieden­fels.

The sep­ar­a­tion could allow Warner Bros. Dis­cov­ery to invest more aggress­ively in OTT in India, espe­cially in sub­scrip­tion-based mod­els. However, the chal­lenges are plenty. Cur­rently, the com­pany only runs the dis­cov­ery+ stream­ing ser­vice in India, while syn­dic­at­ing most of its intel­lec­tual prop­erty (IP) to Jio­Hot­star. Experts believe that the plat­form, now free from hav­ing to serve tra­di­tional TV audi­ences, could lean into bold, edgy con­tent aimed at younger demo­graph­ics.

“The digital busi­ness isn’t big in India, and it will have to show rev­enue now,” said Gir­ish Dwibhashyam, stream­ing industry expert and former vice-pres­id­ent and chief oper­at­ing officer of Doc­uBay, a doc­u­ment­ary stream­ing ser­vice.

“The split could reju­ven­ate their invest­ments in OTT but it would also bring down their nego­ti­at­ing power with Inter­net Ser­vice Pro­viders (ISPs) and aggreg­at­ors for dis­tri­bu­tion part­ner­ships since it would no longer come under the same umbrella as broad­cast,” he added.

While Warner Bros. Dis­covery has dabbled in infotain­ment, sci­ence and myth­o­logy in India, Dwibhashyam sees room for more dar­ing con­tent exper­i­ments. Given that they no longer have the bag­gage of pro­du­cing the same pro­gram­ming for both TV and OTT, the com­pany could explore edgier themes, he said.

Vinay V. Singh, man­aging dir­ector (USA), Primus Part­ners, added that the com­pany could now double down on high-qual­ity ori­gin­als and global formats.

“These are key to cap­tur­ing Indian mil­len­ni­als and Gen Z in a fiercely com­pet­it­ive OTT land­scape,” he said. Singh also said HBO-branded con­tent, cur­rently avail­able via videoon-demand through part­ner­ships like Jio­Hot­star, may gain more muscle with renewed global back­ing. Des­pite the digital optim­ism, lin­ear tele­vi­sion remains dom­in­ant in India, espe­cially in smal­ler towns and non-Eng­lish­speak­ing mar­kets. However, if other global media giants fol­low Warner Bros. Dis­cov­ery’s decoup­ling strategy, stan­dalone TV units may need to raise ad or sub­scrip­tion rates to remain viable. LiveMint