By Karan Taurani@Elara

As per our analysis, Zee/Sony as a combined entity will command an ad revenue share of 28 percent; which is much below threshold of 40 percent — that means there is a low likelihood of an issue on this.

In terms of presence across various genres too, Zee and Sony have minimal overlap; further, across genres too they have viewership share of less than 40 percent (except the movie genre wherein it is 53 percent). For Marathi genre, viewership share is 45 percent, primarily due to Zee being a market leader there even before the merger

We thereby believe that risk in terms of the merger not going through at all remains low. A delay in the merger process will impact share price performance and delay valuation re-rating process.

(A merger between the Indian unit of Japan’s Sony — Culver Max Entertainment/Sony Pictures Networks India— and Zee Entertainment to create a $10 billion TV enterprise will potentially hurt competition by having “unparalleled bargaining power”, India’s antitrust watchdog found in an initial review, according to an official notice seen by Reuters.

(The Competition Commission of India, CCI ’s, August 3 notice to the two companies stated the watchdog is of the view that a further investigation is merited.

(Sony and Zee in December decided to merge their television channels, film assets and streaming platforms to create a powerhouse in a key media and entertainment growth market of 1.4 billion people, challenging rivals like Walt Disney Co, a Reuters report from New Delhi had stated Wednesday.)