Zee-Sony: What Next After The Merger Collapse?

Both sides stand to lose, Zee more than Sony, especially if Reliance buys out Disney's assets in India

- Lata Jha, Gaurav Laghate

When the two-year courtship between Sony Group Corp’s Indian unit and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) ended on a bitter note last week, few in the industry were surprised. Given Zee parent Essel group’s debt problems, a probe by market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) into its promoters, as well as disagreements between Sony and Zee, the split was long anticipated.

Sony Group had agreed to merge its India unit with Zee late in 2021, combining their television networks, digital assets, libraries and streaming platforms to create the country’s largest broadcaster. Media experts had hailed the news back then, saying the two companies would complement each other.

While Japanese entertainment giant Sony has a decent catalogue of sports (sans any top cricket rights) and mainstream general entertainment channels, Zee Entertainment is one of the largest media companies in India. The latter owns and operates Zee TV and Zee Cinema, among several other channels, and has great recall in the regional space. Both Sony and Zee also said they have very strong movie libraries. Once merged, the combined entity would have taken on two large broadcasting networks - Disney Star (owned by Disney India) and Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd-to grab a larger share of the advertising pie. With a combined viewership of around 28%, Zee and Sony would have threatened Disney Star in the broadcast segment (it is the current leader with over 30%), and competed with Viacom18 to acquire rights to more sports properties.

Viacom18, in which entities controlled by Reliance Industries Ltd are the majority shareholders, holds the digital rights to the Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 cricket tournament for five years, starting 2023.

Clearly, none of these synergies will happen now.

WHAT WENT WRONG?