OTTplay, one of India’s leading OTT aggregators, has announced that it is shutting down. HT Media, which owns OTTplay, said while announcing the move that the platform struggled to achieve meaningful economics despite undergoing multiple strategy realignments.
The management made the big announcement during HT Media’s Q4 FY26 earnings call, calling the decision a “deliberate and value-accretive reset”. Further, the management added, the decision aligns with the company’s profitable growth-focussed strategy.
HT Media said it carried out several rounds of review over the last several quarters wherein different approaches were experimented with across content, customer acquisition and subscriber retention. However, the efforts failed to result in a sustainable long-term business model.
HT Media Group CEO Piyush Gupta said the company worked hard to improve OTTplay’s performance before taking the decision to discontinue operations.
Growing competition in the OTT aggregation space was cited as one of the key reasons for the platform’s failure to achieve viable long-term economics. The major competition was from telecom operators which have made their entertainment platforms lucrative with enhanced number of OTT offerings. Most of these aggregators come bundled with telecom plans at a discounted cost, making it easier for customers to subscribe to these services.
During its experiment phase, OTTplay made efforts to create a differentiation in the market by focussing its energies on Tier II and Tier III markets, but the strategy failed to translate into a sustainable business model.
HT Media also attempted to connect with potential buyers and partners, but those efforts also did not yield desired results.
HT Media said the shutdown will have minimal financial impact in terms of residual losses.
It added that while new subscriptions were paused after March 31, 2026, existing subscribers will not face any disruptions and their services will continue normally till the expiry of their current subscription period.