Viacom 18 Media Pvt Ltd, the owner of Colors General Entertainment Channels is in preliminary talks with Subhash Chandra’s Zee Group for a possible merger. Both will together have a bunch of channels ranging from GECs, Music, Movies and other genres apart from OTT, live entertainment, movie production etc.,.
Viacom 18 is a joint venture between TV18 Broadcast Ltd and US bases Viacom CBS . TV18 is a unit of Network 18 Media and Investments Ltd. And a majority stake is owned by Mukhesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited. Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd , founded by Subhash Chandra and majority stake is held by Foreign Institutional Investors but run by Subhash Chandra’s son Punit Goenka.
If the merger takes place, the combined entity will own the largest number of TV channels. If the deal goes through, the promoters of Viacom 18 could become among the largest shareholders of the combined entity. However, the share swap ratio has to be worked out, keeping in mind the interests of both the promoters. Zee owns 48 channels in India while Viacom 18 runs 50 channels. On the OTT front, Zee has Zee5 and Viacom 18 runs Voot.
