Reliance, Disney offer concessions to win antitrust nod for India media merger, Reuters reports

Reliance and Walt Disney have offered to sell some channels to win faster antitrust approval for their $8.5 billion India media assets merger, but are resisting changes to cricket broadcast rights they own, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Antitrust experts have warned that the Reliance-Disney merger, announced in February, could face intense scrutiny as it will create India's biggest entertainment player which will compete with Sony, Zee Entertainment, Netflix and Amazon with a combined 120 TV channels and two streaming services.

The merged company, which will be majority owned by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani's Reliance, will also have lucrative rights worth billions of dollars for the broadcast of cricket, raising pricing power fears and its grip over advertisers.

After the Competition Commission of India (CCI) privately asked Reliance and Disney around 100 questions related to the merger, the companies have told the watchdog they are willing to sell some TV channels — fewer than 10 — to assuage concerns of market power and win an early approval, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The sources said some of the concessions being offered relate to regional Indian language channels where the two companies may have a dominant market share.

Zee and Sony planned to create a $10 billion TV behemoth in India and in 2022 offered concessions by selling three TV channels. That helped them win CCI approval, but the merger eventually collapsed.

CCI's notification approving that deal, which contained details of the competitive landscape, showed that in local language Marathi, Disney and Reliance channels back then had a combined market share of between 65% and 75%. In Bengali language entertainment