Sony Television May Buy ETV's Channels For $600 Mn

Multi Screen Media Pvt Ltd (MSM), which runs Sony Television in India, may acquire Ramoji Rao-owned Eenadu TV's (ETV’s) bouquet of 11 regional channels, for around $500-600 Mn (Rs.2,250-2,400 Cr).

The deal if materialises will give Sony a nationwide regional platform.

ETV's 24-hour Telegu news channel, ETV2, will not be sold to Sony.

Transaction Reference: Business Standard

ETV's 11 channels include - 6 general entertainment channels in regional languages, one Urdu channel and 4 news channel in Hindi.

Apart from having a pan-India presence, ETV's infotainment channels also reaches to US, providing digital entertainment via ETV Telugu, ETV Bangla and ETV Gujarati entertainment channels.

In 2008, Nimesh Kampani of JM Financial came on board of Ushodaya Enterprises Pvt Ltd, the holding company of ETV, by investing $578 Mn in the company.

Ushodaya has three divisions, Eenadu Publications (Newspaper), ETV Network (Broadcasting) and Priya Foods (pickles and food proucts). It has also diversified into film production (Ushakiron Movies) and distribution (Mayuri Film Distributors), TV production and distribution, financial services (Margadarsi Chit Fund), garment and artifacts (Kalanjali), hospitality (Dolphin Chain of Hotels) and also owns a 1,600-acre Ramoji Film City.

It publishes a regional language newspaper 'Eenadu' in the State of Andhra Pradesh.

Sony Entertainment Television (SET) India Pvt Ltd got renamed to Multi Screen Media (MSM) in 2007. Sony Pictures Television International networks business in India grew from one channel in 1995, Sony Entertainment Television (SET), to the current 6 channels that includes Sony TV, SET MAX, SAB TV, Sony PIX, AXN and Animax.

Sony had earlier bought Sri Adhikari Brothers (SAB) TV to have a second-line general entertainment channel.

Some other M&A deals in the broadcasting space include.

According to a FICCI-KPMG report, regional general entertainment accounts for over 25.06% of the Rs.8,000 Cr-plus TV advertising pie with a viewership share of 27.3%.

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