Disney+ Hotstar to stream season three of original ‘Aashiqana’

New Delhi: Disney+ Hotstar will stream the third season of its India original Aashiqana, starting 27 February. The romantic crime thriller stars Zayn Ibad Khan, Khushi Dubey, Pankaj Singh, Geeta Tyagi, Vipul Deshpandey, Geeta Bisht, Anshul Singh, Anshu Srivastava, Inderjeet Modi, Manohar Teli and Harshita Shukla.

The Walt Disney Co plans to cut its workforce by 7,000 as it saw its video streaming platform Disney+ lose paid subscribers by 1% in the October to December quarter, from 164.2 million to 161.8 million. Disney+ Hotstar, as the service is known as in India and other Asian countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, saw subscriber count fall 6% to 57.5 million from 61.3 million.

The average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for international Disney+ (excluding Disney+ Hotstar) decreased from $5.83 to $5.62 due to an unfavourable foreign exchange impact, the company said in a statement. The average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for Disney+ Hotstar increased from $0.58 to $0.74 due to higher per-subscriber advertising revenue.

Bob Iger, who was reappointed chief executive of Disney in a surprise move last November, said the company is looking at strategic reorganisation, where there will be three core business segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products.

“These organisational changes will be implemented immediately, and we will begin reporting under the new business structure by the end of the fiscal year. This reorganisation will result in a more cost-effective, coordinated, and streamlined approach to our operations. We are targeting $5.5 billion of cost savings across the company,” Iger had said during an earnings call, adding that reductions to non-content costs will total roughly $2.5 billion, not adjusted for inflation.

“$1 billion in savings is already underway..in general, the savings will come from reductions in SG&A (selling, general and administrative expenses) and other operating costs across the company. To help achieve this, we will be reducing our workforce by approximately 7,000 jobs. On the content side, we expect to deliver approximately $3 billion in savings over the next few years, excluding sports,” Iger had added.