WALTZ DISNEY

IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO, ESPECIALLY IN A MARKET LIKE INDIA, AND DISNEY KNOWS IT WELL. WITH THE ACQUISITION OF STAR INDIA, IT IS READY TO GET A LARGER CHUNK OF THE BROADCASTING AND OTT PIE. BUT WILL IT BE A PERFECT DANCE?

- KRISHNA GOPALAN

DRESSED IN A BLUE POLO SHIRT, a smiling K. Madhavan takes his time before answering a question. The words are chosen carefully and one has to constantly look for those little nuggets. In the world of media and entertainment, he is one of the most low-profile individuals, though his business is anything but that. As Country Manager & President of Disney Star, he oversees a network of 73 channels across Hindi, English and regional. In terms of genres, it has sports, infotainment, kids, music and movies. The company (then owned by Rupert Murdoch) entered India in the early 1990s to serve an audience that had never seen satellite television. Its English content, for many years, did not strike the right chord here. After almost a decade of no success, it was all set to say goodbye before it gave it one last shot. A change of strategy to have more Hindi content led by Kaun Banega Crorepati with Amitabh Bachchan as host and a clutch of soap operas swung it in the most remarkable way. Today, it is the largest media and entertainment network with revenues of over ₹12,000 crore in FY21 (a pandemic-hit year) and a net profit of ₹1,395 crore.