CCI announces channels to be sold or closed as part of Star–Viacom18 merger conditions: Why it matters

With the mega-merger between Disney Star and Reliance Industries’ Viacom18 gathering full steam, almost all major hurdles have been crossed: most importantly the go-ahead from the government’s Competition Commission of India (CCI) for the merger, which was granted on 28 August 2024. A major prerequisite for the merger was the divestment (sale) or closure of certain channels from genres where both broadcasters have a predominant presence. On 22 October (Tuesday), shortly after Network18’s recent restructuring of its subsidiaries, the CCI revealed a list of 7 channels — including HD and SD feeds of the same channel — that, it determined, contribute too much to Star and Viacom18’s market share in the Bengali, Marathi, Kannada and kids’ genres, and hence must be sold or closed.

Five of these are regional channels and two are kids’ channels, and most have been on air for a decade or two. These are Jalsha Movies (SD and HD), Disney Star’s Bengali movie channel; Colors Marathi (SD and HD), Viacom18’s Marathi general entertainment channel (GEC); Colors Super, Viacom18’s secondary Kannada GEC, complementing Colors Kannada — the youngest of the lot, launched only in 2016 — and Hungama and Super Hungama, kids’ channels from Disney Star that have been best known for Japanese cartoons like Shinchan and Doraemon. After they are disposed of, the combined broadcaster will have a whopping 110 channels, far ahead of anyone else, not counting News18 and CNBC channels or History TV18.

Among the additional conditions for the sale or closure of these channels is that they cannot be acquired by Zee Entertainment Enterprises, Culver Max Entertainment (i.e., Sony Pictures Networks India) and Sun TV Network — these being the three next-biggest private broadcasters in the country after Star and Viacom18 merge to create the largest. Neither can they be bought by a company having any relationship with Reliance or Disney — including Eenadu Television Pvt. Ltd. (ETV Network), the Telugu broadcaster in which Reliance, through TV18, has a nearly 25% stake. This means that if these channels are acquired by any existing broadcaster, it must be an independent player like Enterr10 Network, Times Network or Warner Bros. Discovery, failing which they will most likely be shuttered.

Interestingly, there are no Hindi movie channels or sports channels in the CCI’s list, despite both broadcasters — Disney Star especially — having a massive presence in those genres. However, bear in mind that both broadcasters have been aiming not to divest or close as many channels as possible, due to ad rates being frozen for the next few years, and hence they will need as many existing channels as possible (including channels showing reruns of other channels’ shows) to minimise the loss in ad revenue. Still, the few channels selected for divestment or closure are surprising (even shocking, at times) compared to other channels from Star or Viacom18 in the respective genres — as we discuss in detail below. (The broadcasters may also choose to shutter more channels in the coming months, though that is not known at this stage.)

Jalsha Movies’ closure or sale is a huge shock — certainly compared to the lower-profile Colors Bangla Cinema

This is quite probably the most shocking blow out of all the channels to be sold or closed, given that Jalsha Movies has been a cornerstone of Disney Star’s regional offerings for over a decade. Not only is it the only Bengali movie channel available in HD — Zee Bangla Cinema and Colors Bangla Cinema have no HD feeds planned — but it was also Disney Star’s first-ever regional movie channel to launch an HD feed. (Jalsha Movies HD and Star Jalsha HD were launched back in April 2016, some weeks before Star Pravah HD (Marathi) and Colors Bangla HD in May, and several months before Zee Bangla HD that November.)

Should Jalsha Movies (SD and HD) close down, Bengali viewers will lose their one and only HD movie channel, and be left with only four HD GECs: Star Jalsha HD and Zee/Colors/Sun Bangla HD. This will be all the more baffling because Viacom18’s Colors Bangla Cinema is a much newer and smaller channel with no HD feed, and would likely have been a more appropriate channel for closure — just as Colors Bangla has a tiny market share compared to Star Jalsha or Zee Bangla, which together account for a near-duopoly among Bengali GECs. Even so, Colors Bangla Cinema has been more popular than Jalsha Movies in recent BARC ratings in late 2024, but that does not logically translate to the latter’s sale or closure.

Moreover, Jalsha Movies has retained the same violet-and-pink graphics package ever since its launch in December 2012, not updating its look even once. In contrast, Star Jalsha last rebranded in February 2019, introducing its current turquoise-and-orange graphics package. Zee Bangla Cinema, too, has kept changing its on-air appearance over the years, despite not having an HD feed: most recently on its 10^th birthday in September 2022. Even Star Movies, Disney Star’s English movie channel, is expected to shed its outdated look in 2025 — with new graphics for the first time since 2009 (a whopping 16 years) — but now Jalsha Movies might never be able to do the same, which is unfortunate indeed.

Colors Marathi’s sale is not unexpected, as it has struggled with Star Pravah’s dominance

In stark contrast to Jalsha Movies’ completely unexpected and unfortunate fate, Colors Marathi — an also-ran in a language dominated by Star Pravah, with Zee/Sony/Sun Marathi also playing catch-up — was always on the cards for being divested after the merger. Originally launched as ETV Marathi in 1999, and acquired by Reliance in 2014 alongside many other non-Telugu ETV channels, it has always struggled in a market controlled by Zee Marathi until 2020 and Star Pravah thereafter. This despite multiple rebrandings, most recently in August 2024 — though not as frequently as Colors Kannada, which, unusually among Indian channels, rebrands every year with new graphics.

The way forward was always clear for Marathi, since Viacom18 does not have any Marathi movie channel, and hence Star Pravah and the much newer movie channel Pravah Picture (launched in 2022) will be the combined broadcaster’s presence in Maharashtra. This is in sharp contrast to Zee, which has historically favoured Marathi over other regional languages and launched multiple supporting channels to complement the flagship Zee Marathi — though some, like the music channel Zee Vajwa, were later axed. If Zee’s mega-merger with Sony hadn’t failed, Sony Marathi would have joined Zee Marathi, Talkies, Yuva and Chitramandir to pose stiff competition to Star Pravah, but that did not come to pass.

Colors Super is a natural candidate for sale, especially as Colors Kannada stays miles ahead of Star Suvarna

Kannadigas arguably has a special relationship with Colors Kannada, which was for the longest time Viacom18’s only regional GEC — other than Colors Gujarati, which enjoys a competition-free monopoly — to be the number one in its state. Buoyed by its success, Viacom18 launched a supporting Kannada GEC, Colors Super, in 2016: something that it hasn’t done for any other language. It was only in the early 2020s that Zee Kannada snatched its leadership away and overthrew it at the top, while Star Suvarna was (and remains) a distant third. Colors Kannada and Zee Kannada control the Kannada market for themselves (like Star Jalsha and Zee Bangla in Bengali), leaving little for Star Suvarna and the Sun network’s Udaya TV.

Colors Kannada’s affinity with viewers remains unusually strong, far more than most other Viacom18 regional GECs, which are mediocre at best. (This is in contrast to other regional markets, where Disney Star is often the leader, as seen with Star Jalsha and Pravah as well as Star Maa (Telugu) — among the top 5 nationally as per BARC’s weekly ratings — and Asianet (Malayalam).) So much so that, as mentioned above, Colors Kannada changes its graphics package almost every year — unlike almost all other Indian channels, where rebrands occur every few years, with some graphics packages even (as in the case of Jalsha Movies above) lasting for well over a decade. As such, if there was a Kannada channel to be discarded after the mega-merger, it could only have been the smaller Colors Super — which is good news for Star Suvarna, an established (though not highly-watched) brand.

Though both broadcasters have a Kannada movie channel — Star Suvarna Plus and Colors Kannada Cinema — neither of them has an HD feed. Not launching an HD feed for Star Suvarna Plus is particularly surprising for Disney Star, since almost all its other regional movie channels have one: Jalsha Movies (Bengali), Pravah Picture (Marathi), Star Maa Movies (Telugu) and most recently Vijay Super (Tamil) and Asianet Movies (Malayalam), which launched their HD versions in March 2023. Even so, having both Star- and Colors-branded movie channels in the same market may be seen as redundant, especially with Jalsha Movies getting the axe in Bengali and not Colors Bangla Cinema. But this only illustrates how much stronger the Colors Kannada brand is compared to the Star Suvarna channels, necessitating its retention at Colors Super’s expense.