Cricket has got the status of a religion in India. In such a situation, touching any system related to it is like touching a burning ember. Probably the Competition Commission of India is aware of this. So, now he is seeing a lot of problems in Reliance Industries' merger deal to buy Star India's business from Disney.
To ensure that cricket fans are not monopolized in the market, the CCI has raised several concerns about the Reliance-Disney deal at the last moment, almost after the entire process is over, as the deal is yet to become regulatory. Approvals This deal of Reliance and Disney is a big deal worth about 8.5 billion dollars ie 71,196 crore rupees.
What is CCI's tension about the deal?
International news agency Reuters, citing sources, has reported that the CCI has expressed its biggest concern over the 'broadcasting rights of cricket' between Reliance and Disney, as Disney's Star Sports channels, OTT platform Disney + Hotstar and Jio Cinemas have almost every form of cricket in the country. The match has rights. Which includes ICC matches and IPL matches.
CCI is concerned that after the merger, the majority stake in the new company will be held by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance, the country's richest man. By leveraging its monopoly, a company can wage a price and price war in the market. At the same time, it can strengthen its grip on advertisers. The end user may have to bear the brunt of this in the form of an increase in subscription fees.
Competition in the market will worsen
This is not the only concern of CCI. He has privately asked both Reliance and Disney why the merger should not be probed. However, there has been no official reaction from any of the three parties. However, the report said that the CCI had earlier asked over 100 questions to both Reliance and Disney regarding the merger, to which the companies had said that they planned to sell less than 10 channels in the merger, so that they could get an early nod.
CCI has written to Disney separately explaining its concerns regarding the deal, sources said. He says that this merger deal will affect other players in the market. This will affect Sony, Zee Entertainment, Netflix and Amazon. After the merger, the new company will have around 120 TV channels and 2 OTT platforms. Reliance also owns Viacom 18.
However, the CCI has given both the companies 30 days to respond to the inquiry's queries. At the same time, experts say there are many other concessions companies can make to the CCI to get the deal cleared.
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