Aside from Disney-Star snatching the rights of so many YRF movies, leaving its already feeble Hindi library considerably weaker, SPN has also been badly affected in its core strength area, South dubbed movies, by the advent of Dhinchaak. The Goldmines-owned movie channel, as described above, has been a backstabber of sorts for Sony Max, which has been heavily dependent on Goldmines for its South movie library. Dhinchaak has been bad news not just for Sony Max and Sony Wah, but also other free-to-air Hindi movie channels from small broadcasters like B4U Movies, B4U Kadak, Enterr10 Movies and Cinema TV India, which have been forced to relook at their movie syndication and acquisition strategy to stay afloat.
Which is why Sony’s Hindi movie cluster needed the merger with Zee more desperately than ever.