Zee Ent to merge 6 Zee News channels with itself

MUMBAI, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Television broadcaster Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEE.BO) on Thursday said its board approved acquiring six regional general entertainment channels of Zee News Ltd (ZEEN.BO) in a share-swap deal.

The board approved issuing four Zee Entertainment shares for every 19 Zee News shares, it said in a statement to the BSE.

Zee Entertainment will merge Zee Marathi, Zee Talkies, Zee Bangla, Zee Telugu, Zee Kannada & Zee Cinemalu with itself, effective January 1, 2010, it added.

For fiscal 2009, the six channels reported operating profit of 797 million rupees on revenue of 3.4 billion rupees. (Reporting by Bharghavi Nagaraju; Editing by Sunil Nair)