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.
