Bharti Airtel Ltd on Wednesday said it is engaged in “bilateral discussions’’ with the Tata group for a potential merger of their direct-to-home (DTH) businesses.

“Airtel and the Tata group are in bilateral discussions to explore a potential transaction to achieve a combination of Tata group’s DTH business housed under Tata Play Ltd, with Bharti Telemedia Ltd, a subsidiary of Airtel, in a structure acceptable to all parties,’’ the telco said in a regulatory filing.

Its statement was in response to reports which said that both the groups are close to combining their loss-making DTH business. Airtel, however, added that the potential merger is currently at a discussion stage only. Earlier, a report said the amalgamation will be through a share swap which will result in Airtel holding more than 50 per cent in the merged entity. The rest of the shareholding will be held by Tata Sons and Walt Disney.

Tata Play is India’s largest DTH player, which began as a joint venture with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The latter’s stake was subsequently acquired by Walt Disney as it bought 21st Century Fox in 2019. Airtel will gain access to Tata Play’s nearly 1.9 crore customers and will enable it to jointly offer telecom, broadband and DTH services.

After the merger, the entity will have a subscriber base of nearly 3.5 crore. Both the companies’ DTH business are reportedly been valued at over ₹6,000 crore each.

The development comes at a time the DTH business is feeling the pinch of streaming platforms and DD Free Dish, a free DTH platform run by Prasar Bharati.

It also comes days after JioStar, the newly formed joint venture by the merger of Viacom18 and Star India, announced the launch of JioHotstar by bringing together JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar streaming platforms.

With close to 3 lakh hours of entertainment, live sports coverage, and more than 50 crore users, JioHotstar said that it will provide compelling subscription plans tailored to diverse audience needs, starting at ₹149.

The platform will offer content of Disney, NBCUniversal Peacock, Warner Bros, Discovery HBO, and Paramount. It will also stream premier tournaments such as the ICC events, IPL, and WPL, while also bringing grassroots cricket with the Indian Street Premier League and events from BCCI, ICC and state associations. On Tuesday, the Bharti Airtel share ended 2.55 per cent higher at ₹1,641.50 on the BSE.

5G push

Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson has deployed core technology to support Airtel’s transition to a 5G standalone network, the telecom operator said on Tuesday.

Airtel has awarded a contract to Ericsson to deploy 5G technology in 12 out of 22 telecom circles.