Disney+ Hotstar to stream new season of ‘The Mandalorian’ on 1 March

Disney+ Hotstar will stream the new season of its television series The Mandalorian in Hindi and English, on 1 March. The show, based on the Star Wars franchise, stars Pedro Pascal in the lead role.

Viewership of international content on over-the-top (OTT) video streaming platforms in India has nearly doubled in 2022 as audiences took to original and dubbed versions of English, Turkish, Spanish and Korean shows and films.

Viewers have become increasingly language agnostic owing to dubbing and subtitling of international shows popular for high-quality storytelling and production, said streaming services firms. Many services also used social media influencers and Bollywood stars to market these shows in India over the past year.

According to media consulting firm Ormax, the most viewed international series this year include House of the Dragon (28.2 million) and Moon Knight (23.4 million) beating last year’s record of 19.3 million by Hawkeye. All three shows are on Disney+Hotstar.

Of the international series promoted in India, the top three are from established franchises and superhero genres. The most-viewed international web-series launched last year were Disney+Hotstar’s House of the Dragon (28.2 million) and Moon Knight (23.4 million), and The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings of Power (22 million) on Amazon Prime Video. In 2021, the highest viewership came for Hawkeye, also on Hotstar, with a viewership of 19.3 million.

From international content, English language content dominates viewership, with 65% of SVoD (subscription-led video-on-demand) audiences watching it, with or without language support, followed by Korean language content, being viewed by 30% of the SVoD audience base. The SVoD audience in India is today watching an average of 4.6 languages versus the AVoD audience which doesn’t get enough dubbed content and is restricted to an average of 2.3 languages of consumption.

The mushrooming of platforms offering international programming and audiences subscribing to multiple services has increased their exposure to high quality compelling storytelling.