IPL media rights: Strategic time-out for media giants Disney, Viacom

The two media giants see very different gains from their bets on IPL media rights

For the first time ever, the jewel in the crown for media rights was split between two broadcasting giants for five years. On Tuesday, Disney+ Star, which already controlled the coveted media rights for both TV and digital of the Indian Premier League (IPL), managed to retain only the former, raising questions on the future of its domination in the over-the-top (OTT) digital sweepstakes through Disney+ Hotstar.

Grabbing the media rights for digital broadcast was Viacom18 — the Mukesh Ambani-Uday Shankar-James Murdoch combine — that is entering cricket for the first time. But it forked out a huge bill of Rs