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- Star India announces buyout of broadcasting business of the leading Telugu entertainment network Maa Television, India's second largest regional language entertainment space.
- Present MAA TV management includes Nimmagadda Prasad, Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna & Allu Arvind
- STAR establishes presence in all South India
- STAR in other South states : Vijay TV (TN), Asianet (kerala) & Suvarna (Karnataka)
- MAA TV with a marketshare of 27% is valued at Rs 2000 crore.
HYDERABAD: Global media mogul Rupert Murdochowned Star India has agreed to buy the broadcasting business of the leading Telugu entertainment network Maa Television, involving its brand, assets and four channels, for an undisclosed consideration.
Announcing the deal in Hyderabad on Wednesday, the Star India chief executive Uday Shankar said the acquisition would give Star India, part of the Nasdaq listed 21st Century Fox, access to highly attractive Telugu TV market.
The strategic deal would come into effect upon complying with the necessary regulatory formalities, which are expected to take few months of time. The deal enables Star India to have presence in all the South Indian language markets. The Rupert Murdoch owned entity had earlier bought the general entertainment channels in Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam languages. The management of Maa Television Network, owned by the serial entrepreneur Nimmagadda Prasad and Telugu film personalities Chiranjeevi, Akkineni Nagarjuna and Allu Arvind, will however retain the company to explore business opportunities, which they will preferred to announce later.
Maa TV Network has a bouquet of four channels that include Maa, Maa Music, Maa Movies and Maa Gold, currently enjoying a market share of around 27% in India's second largest regional language entertainment space valued at around Rs 2,000 crore.
This could be a good sign for the Telugu film industry. it has been having a bad run for the last two years for various reasons. to add to it, the satellite rights for movies being produced are not being picked up by television channels. this creates a huge dent in the recovery of the cost of production. with star coming into the picture, there could be some capital infusion towards content procurement as a part of consolidation strategy.
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