WarnerMedia has told that HBO and WB discontinue in India and 4 other South
Asian countries from December 15. “After 20 years of successes for the HBO
linear movie channel in South Asia and more than a decade with the WB linear
movie channel, this was a difficult decision to make.
Before Netflix or other OTT platforms became popular, Indian
viewers relied on television to watch English movies. HBO and WB were the two
main channels for serving English movies to Indian audiences. However, with the
advent of OTT platform, the trend of watching movies on TV has decreased a lot.
As a result, such channels are suffering. For all these reasons WarnerMedia
International is going to shut down their movie channels HBO SD and HD from
India and Pakistan and WB channel in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Maldives.
These channels will be closed from December 15.
However, WarnerMedia International will continue to
broadcast their children's channels Cartoon Network and POGO in South Asia.
According to the company, the popularity of these two channels among children
is still maintained. They will also focus on local animation productions on
these two channels.
Siddharth Jain, WarnerMedia's South Asia SVP and Managing
Director, said: The pay-TV industry and market fluctuations have changed
dramatically, and the Covid-19 supermarket has made the need for change even
greater.
He added: "We are grateful to our partners and fans who
made HBO and WB a household name. We are also grateful to our employees who
have worked so hard for this popular brand. WarnerMedia has a keen interest in
India and we are committed to providing every opportunity to our customers
here.”
WarnerMedia will hire employees in Mumbai, Delhi and
Bangalore to run their children's channels, as well as sales, marketing and
distribution for CNN International, they said.
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