India, Aug. 14 -- Reliance-owned Viacom18 and Star India have reportedly offered to offload some of their television channels in a bid to fast track antitrust approval for their $8.5 Bn merger.

Reuters reported citing sources that the two companies are willing to sell "fewer" than 10 channels to address concerns of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) over the market power of the combined entity.

However, the two parties are said to be "resisting" any changes to cricket broadcast rights they own.

As per the report, the channels, in question, likely belong to the regional Indian language portfolio, where the two giants may have a dominant market share.

The responses of the companies came after the competition watchdog privately as...