Zee buys 50% exposure in Ten Sports for $57 m

Dubai based Taj Television owned Ten Sports and Zee Tele Films on Monday announced the acquisition of the 50% controlling stake in the Ten Sports channel for an all-cash deal of $ 57.15 million. The enterprise value stood at $114 million.

Zee Tele Films is the first private channel in India. It was the market leader in terms of viewership since its inception. Now the Indian TV market is dominated by Star Network. It is followed Sony Network. These two channels are ahead of Zee only because of variety of channels they have in their portfolio. The competition to grab the market share is throat to throat. Zee has got the right from BCCI to telecast the matches to be held in India. It has already entered in to a new segment. The Tensports partnership will giva it added advantage. The other two competitors Star and Sony telecast their programs through two channels each. That is Star Sports and ESPN for Star Network and SET MAX and SAB TV for Sony Entertainment. Now Zee would be able to telecast its program through two channels and it can go for two different sports or series at a time. Now it will not have any risk of coincidence of timing of two matches.

Dubai is a new market for India TV channels. Now the Indian channels are expanding themselves throughout Asia where Indians and Pakistani populations are staying with a considerable population. Dubai is a good market for them. The presence of Tensports in Dubai will facilitate the expansion of Zee to that country. There is news in the market that Zee may acquire the Ten Sports channel in near future. If that happens that is a good strategy by Zee Network. It will get the right to telecast all the matches which the Tensports has right to telecast. Again Ten Sports has got the right to telecast Cricket matches in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and West Indies. Again Ten Sports is one of the leading sports channel in India. This will give advantage to Zee as it will not have to put much effort to make the channel popular.