India’s JioStar rolled out its JioHotstar streaming service in the UK, Canada and Singapore on Tuesday, replacing the Hotstar app that had served those markets and adding interactive features not previously offered outside India.
Existing Hotstar subscribers don’t need to sign up again. Their login credentials carry over automatically, and current plans convert to the matching JioHotstar tier. In the UK, subscribers on monthly plans can keep them as long as auto-renewal stays active, though the company has stopped offering monthly billing to new customers there, pricing the service instead at £19.99 per quarter or £69.99 annually.
The launch lineup pairs JioHotstar originals such as “Asur,” “Special Ops,” “Criminal Justice” and “Aarya” with film premieres including “Dhurandhar,” “12th Fail” and “Chhichhore.” New series exclusive to the international rollout include “Ali Baba Aur Chaalis Bhoot,” “Prince of Mollywood” and “The Court.” Reality staples “Koffee With Karan,” “Khatron Ke Khiladi” and “Roadies” round out the catalog, which the company says spans more than 160,000 hours of programming across a dozen Asian languages with subtitles and dubbing built in.
The most significant upgrade centers on “Bigg Boss.” For the first time, viewers in all three markets can cast live votes across every regional edition of the reality franchise, a feature JioStar had reserved for Indian audiences until now. UK and Canadian subscribers also gain a 24/7 live feed, and Canadian viewers will see “Bigg Boss Hindi” episodes a full week before they broadcast on television in India. Canada and Singapore additionally get “India Ka Top 1 Percent,” a new quiz format hosted by Anil Kapoor.
Notably absent from the international package is the Indian Premier League and other cricket properties JioStar controls the rights to, which remain outside the launch offering.
Amit Malhotra, JioStar’s head of international business, framed the expansion as a shift away from pure content volume. Streaming’s first decade, he said, was fought over catalog size; JioStar is betting the next phase turns on how deeply audiences can shape what they watch in real time. The company describes the push as aimed chiefly at the South Asian diaspora in these markets, while still courting broader global viewership.
