Star TV opens up Hotstar in UK/USA

Star TV’s digital and entertainment online portal, Hotstar has made an entry on UK and USA shores today.

The website, which has up until now only been available in India, has been redirecting to a ‘Star TV’ page due to content restriction in the UK and other territories. However, today is the first time the official Hotstar page has opened up paving way for Star TV to begin streaming its own content on-demand.

Hotstar in the UK still has some content locked due to copyright with Star TV channels. However, Hotstar Originals branded shows and South Indian channels owned by Star TV India are now available to watch immediately.

Hotstar has recently introduced a band where it produces its own shows to entice the youth crowd in the digital space. Its latest show was ‘On Air With AIB’, which incidentally is also being broadcast on Star Plus. Its next ‘Original’ band will introduce the new ‘mini-series’ of popular Star Plus fiction ‘Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon’. The Arnav-Khushi love story will be available online including UK from Tuesday (24th October) over eight, ten-minute episodes.

With this, Star TV UK will enter the digital media space with its own on-demand service. Star TV channels are already available on Sky’s Sky Player, however, content is limited. Rival broadcasters like ZEE Network have two services like Ditto TV and ZEE Family, while Sony has Sony LIV.

STAR TV UK did not comment at the time of filing this article.