Lionsgate Sells Its Play Streaming Service to Asia President Rohit Jain

Lionsgate has sold its Lionsgate Play streaming service to Rohit Jain, who has been scaling the platform across Asia for the past eight years in his capacity as president of Lionsgate Play Asia.

As part of the deal, Jain will transition fully to managing Lionsgate Play and exit the studio. All other Lionsgate film & television business in India and Southeast Asia will remain with the studio.

“I’m deeply grateful to Jon Feltheimer and Brian Goldsmith for the trust and freedom to build Lionsgate’s India business and transform Lionsgate Play into a premium streaming platform across Asia,” Jain said in a statement.  “Lionsgate Play has established itself as a leading destination for Hollywood content in India and is now positioned to expand well beyond that—shaping a differentiated, future-ready streaming platform for the region.”

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Lionsgate Play offers over 1,000 hours of content, from Hollywood shows to Bollywood movies, including originals such as “P-Valley,” “Feels Like Home,” “Gaslit,” “Jugaadistan,” “Spartacus,” “Hiccups & Hookups” and more.

Under a multi-year deal, Lionsgate will license the Lionsgate Play brand name for the streaming platform as well as provide access to films and television series from the studio as the platform looks to continue to scale. In addition to Lionsgate, the platform sources content from Paramount, Starz, Universal, Warner Bros. and more.

Lionsgate Play offers two subscriptions: a quarterly plan for ₹399 ($4.42) and an annual plan for ₹799 ($8.85).

Jain first joined Lionsgate in 2017 as managing director of South Asia. He would be promoted to Lionsgate Play’s president in 2023. Prior to Lionsgate, Jain served as deputy CEO of the startup Videocon d2h and was a business head at Hewitt Associates. He also is an angel investor and co-founder of the India-based firm Exponential Capital.

“We thank Rohit for his outstanding leadership in building and scaling Lionsgate’s business in India over the past eight years,” Lionsgate COO Brian Goldsmith said. “Under his stewardship, the Lionsgate brand has gained greater resonance with audiences in South Asia and Southeast Asia, and Lionsgate Play has emerged as a distinctive premium streaming platform in one of the world’s fastest-growing digital entertainment markets. Rohit is an entrepreneur with a deep understanding of the Asia landscape, and he has the expertise and experience to lead Lionsgate Play into an exciting new phase of growth.”

The sale of Lionsgate Play comes as activist investor Anson Funds, billionaire Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management and former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic Capital have built major stakes in Lionsgate. Anson Funds previously called on Lionsgate to consider an outright sale or asset sales following its split from Starz last May. TheWrap previously reported that Legendary Entertainment was mulling a potential acquisition of Lionsgate back in July. 

In an interview with CNBC last month, Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns declined to comment on the status of the talks with Legendary, but said the studio would be a “valuable asset” to “a lot of different companies” given its scale and library of premium content. He added that there are three or four companies that he believed would be a “great strategic alliance” with Lionsgate and generate cost savings, though he declined to elaborate.

Shares of Lionsgate are up 32% in the past six months and 9% in the past month, but down 1.2% year to date.

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