Anatomy of Reliance-Disney merger

The joint venture between Reliance Industries (RIL) and Bodhi Tree Systems owned Viacom 18 Media, and The Walt Disney Company will create India's largest media company.

- VANITA KOHLI-KHANDEKAR

The ₹23,000 crore (revenues FY24) venture, announced in February, was cleared by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) this week.

"The speed with which it has cleared regulatory hurdles is impressive," says Daoud Jackson, senior analyst, media and entertainment, Omdia.

While the CCI is yet to release its final order, here are five things you should know about the new entity and its place in the 2.3 trillion (2023) media and entertainment business.

What does the JV own?

"It is a giant hammer on everyone's coffin," says Kunal Dasgupta, founder iTap Entertainment and Gaming and former CEO of Sony.

The RIL-Disney combination will create a broadcaster with 110 channels such as Star Plus and Colors and a leading 32 per cent share of all television viewership on the back shows such as Bigg Boss and Anupama.

That is a hold over 285 million of the 890 million TV viewers, with large slices in Hindi, Marathi, Telugu and Bengali speaking markets.

According to Media Partners Asia (MPA), the duo will have 40 per cent share of the total revenue market for broadcasters and 45 per cent of the premium streaming market. Disney-Star has the digital and TV rights to all men's and women's events played under the International Cricket Council (ICC) from 2024 to 2027.

Viacom18 owns the streaming rights to the Indian Premier League or IPL.

Between them $9 billion has been paid for all cricket there is to broadcast or stream.

In a notice to the firms, CCI has questioned their almost 90 per cent viewership share in sports (cricket) on television and their ownership of the streaming rights as well.