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With Zee TV and Sony India coming together, the inevitable is happening: Indian media is also going the global way. In the 1980s, the global media was owned by at least 50 companies; but from 2010s onwards, the global media is being owned by just six major conglomerations.  Media is losing its plurality which is not always good for democracy.

At one point, the fight looked like a hostile takeover; but the settlement now seems to suggest that the merger of the two companies would lead to the formation of the largest broadcasting network in India. The new outfit will be headed by Zee founder Subhash Chandra’s son Punit Goenka; but the 51% stake of Sony of the new combine against 4% of the family clearly indicates who will call the shots. The alliance of a family-founded media group and a professionally run multinational will set new rules for the administration of a media house. Content making for 75 odd TV channels will be a challenge.

Globalisation, we know, has brought about this consolidation of media houses throughout the world – and India cannot stay insulated. But is this process really doing any good to the common people, whom the media is supposed to represent? Its status and credibility as ‘the fourth estate’ of democracy comes this equation. But the behaviour of media – and its business – keeps changing. The political alignments of the media houses in the US are well known. In India too it is becoming quite apparent. The alignment of Subhash Chandra and Zee is known to everyone. Will this new merger bring about a change? We will wait and watch.

In spite of   the overall dilution of values in the media, the market of the media is still a fiercely fought one. True, the ZEE-Sony combine will be the largest TV network; but in the growing streaming media (OTT) market, the fight of ZEE5 and Sony Liv will not be easy with Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+Hotstar. They are formidable rivals and they have already gained very strong grounds in this entertainment segment. New areas of content need to be explored. Zee with a strong ‘news’ network might toy with the idea of entering the OTT segment with news-related content, which is yet to gain ground  in the area.

The existing news channels are already criticised for importing ‘entertainment’ into it. But in this world of convergence, this is inevitable. Technologies are coming together; and so will content. People are finding it tough to distinguish between the fake and real. But media will have to regain credibility through experiments, through trial and error in these changing times. The fake does not originate from the media. Media is just a transmission vehicle – a means to an end. It has to re-establish its position of a credible ‘fourth estate’ in a democracy through its ‘neutrality’. The media cannot align itself to any political party. That would be going against the cause of its very existence. Can the professionalism of the multinational partner change the ‘alignment’ of the new combine?

But the history of the media says otherwise. Since its inception two hundred years ago, media has generally served the powerful. Later in the World Wars, for example, media became a tool for propaganda, for both the Allies and the enemies.  We have seen ‘embedded journalism’, we have seen paid news, private treaties, media lobbying. But we still hope for a turnaround for the media, and these changing mergers may provide such opportunities. History does not give us much hope; but the future might.