With regards to its India media merger, two of India’s leading media companies- Reliance Industries and Walt Disney have sought an antitrust clearance for their $8.5 billion merger deal.
Days after the announcement of the merger, CCI’s former head of mergers, K.K Sharma, had suggested that the regulator could be concerned as “hardly anything of cricket will be left” with Disney-Reliance having “absolute control over cricket“.
As of now, the two to-be merged entities currently possess the digital and TV rights of impact cricket properties like the Indian Premier League and matches of the International Cricket Council and the Indian Cricket Board.
Taking into consideration the apprehensions of the high leverage that the combined entity will have on the advertisers’ and consumers’ front, both Reliance and Disney have argued that their combined entity won’t impact advertisers, especially on cricket broadcasting, as cricket-watching consumers can be targeted on multiple competing platforms such as YouTube and Meta.
Reports citing officials from the two companies mentioned that because Indians consume content across multiple platforms, including TV channels, social media, and streaming platforms, advertisers will not be disadvantaged by the deal.
Following this, the two media entities have also told the Competition Commission of India (CCI) that the cricket rights were obtained individually through a competitive bidding process and that other competitors won’t be harmed as they can bid when those rights expire in 2027 and 2028.
Moving forward, the CCI will also review the confidential filings and seek more information from the two entities for clearance which typically takes several weeks and can even go longer if the watchdog isn’t satisfied.
