Reliance, Disney may Offer Ad Rate Freeze for CCI Nod

22 Aug 2024 , 12:26 PM

In their most recent attempt to secure the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) approval for the Star India and Viacom18 merger, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Walt Disney are considering proposing a two-year freeze on advertising rate cards, according to news reports.

Disney and RIL, who want to close the deal by October, have been looking for strategies to allay the regulator’s worries about how the deal would affect the media and entertainment (M&E) sector in India.

“The proposal being discussed internally is to provide a two-year price freeze on ad rate cards to all advertisers and agencies,” according to one of the reports.

According to someone else quoted by the report, “both sides are confident that the merger deal will cross the CCI hurdle.” “Price freeze on ad rate cards has the potential to allay CCI’s concerns of the merger’s impact on competition,” the individual stated.

Officials from media agencies think RIL and Disney’s idea is intriguing since it might aid in the Star-Viacom18 combination obtaining CCI clearance and because there won’t be much of a chance for ad income loss as a result of the ad rate freeze.

The Indian Premier League (IPL), which has suffered greatly over the past two years from soft advertising, is one of the properties that some insiders claim the combined company will not noticeably lose from the proposed pricing freeze.

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