On Wednesday, the social me-dia accounts of JioStar teased the arrival of “a new era”. It turns out JioHotstar, the new OTT platform and one of the products of the months-long merger between Reliance Industry Limited’s Viacom and Disney Star India, is set to go live today. The streamer will house the library of both Reliance’s JioCinema and Disney Star India’s Disney+ Hotstar. Said to be designed with the idea of reaching the last-mile consumer, it will provide all its content free of cost and without subscription, but with ads. Subscription packs that provide ad-free content start at R149.

Obviously, the big question is: What happens to users who have active subscriptions with JioCinema or Disney+ Hotstar or both? A source tells us that existing subscribers of either platform will be automatically migrated to JioHotstar’s most premium subscription plan of R499 per quarter. The source breaks it down further, saying, “It’s only after your existing  subscription expires that you’ll need to choose from JioHotstar’s different packs. For those who currently have accounts on both platforms, the one with the longer validity period will be considered.”