Disney+ Hotstar finally lets you create profiles for multiple users

After a long wait, Disney+ Hotstar has reportedly begun rolling out Profiles, letting multiple users sharing a subscription have their own personalised watching experience. The screenshots shared by a user of Disney+ Hotstar show that profiles are not fully available and that they are “coming soon.” The new Profiles feature comes as Disney+ Hotstar was reported to have lost a huge chunk of subscribers.

The Profiles section on Disney+ Hotstar will let you add profiles besides the default one and the one meant for kids. These profiles are likely to let you assign a photo, based on the characters of different Disney+ and Hotstar shows such as Ms. Marvel, Criminal Justice, and Anupama. It is, however, not clear if profiles will be available according to a user’s subscription. Disney+ Hotstar offers various subscriptions, including the premium tier that lets you stream on four screens at the same time.

A million years after everyone, Hotstar is finally—FINALLY—getting profiles pic.twitter.com/eCGj6HAhJW

— Akhil Arora (@akhil_arora) February 12, 2023

Other streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and ZEE5 have allowed personalised watching experience through profiles for a while, despite having fewer subscribers than Disney+ Hotstar. The subscriber base of the Walt Disney-owned streaming service shrank from 61.3 million in the previous quarter to 57.5 million in the quarter ending on December 31, 2022.

The sudden decline in the subscribers of Disney+ Hotstar, according to experts, could be an outcome of the loss of rights to stream the Indian Premiere League tournament for four years, from 2023 to 2027. IPL is the most-streamed sporting event in India and the rights to stream it has been with Disney+ Hotstar for several years. However, Viacom 18 bagged the rights for the next four years, giving users a reason to ditch Disney+ Hotstar.

There is also a report that says that Disney+ Hotstar will also lose the rights to stream HBO content, which means hit shows such as Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, and Succession will move to another streaming service. If true, that would force some users to leave Disney+ Hotstar, adding to the fall of subscribers of the streaming service.