Billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal are considering competing bids for a stake in a troubled Indian television network, people with knowledge of the matter said, as their telecom carriers race for content in the worlds second-biggest mobile market.

Mittal’s Bharti Airtel Ltd has started due diligence of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd and is expected to make a formal proposal soon, one of the people said, asking not to be identified citing confidentiality. Ambani’s Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd is also considering a bid, the people said.

Deliberations are preliminary and may not lead to a transaction, they said.

A representative for Zee said the company does not comment on speculation though it is in steady dialogue with potential partners. A spokesperson for Bharti said the company is not in the race to acquire the television network.

A successful deal would help the winning bidder add a slew of video services in the scramble for user revenue as the government prepares to auction 5G airwaves this year. Some of the worlds largest telecommunications companies including AT&T Inc, Vodafone Group Plc and KDDI Corp have been buying film and television production and cable TV assets to bolster earnings as subscribers level off.

Bidding for such assets has accelerated as entertainment providers themselves gather content to offer programming via the Internet and compete with upstarts like Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc’s Prime service.

The objectives of the telecommunication companies will not be necessarily to own Zee, but have adequate strategic stake so as to play into the distribution opportunity on their high-speed networks, Mumbai-based Alok Shende, principal analyst at consulting firm Ascentius Insights said. Interest in Zee is reflective of the triple play opportunity that is unfolding in the Indian market, he said, referring to the ability of mobile players to bundle carriage, content and commerce on a single platform.

Shares of Zee climbed 3.2 per cent in Mumbai on Thursday, leading gains in the S&P BSE 100 Index. Reliance Industries Ltd, Jio’s parent company, declined 1.6 per cent while Bharti rose 1.9 per cent.

Heavily Indebted

Zee, the heavily-indebted broadcaster controlled by former rice trader-turned-media mogul Subhash Chandra, is seeking a strategic investor to help fend off competition from Netflix, Amazon and hundreds of local TV channels vying to tap India’s booming demand for content.

Zee, which boasts 1.3 billion viewers across 173 countries through its 78 channels and 4,800 movie titles, has previously attracted interest from Sony Corp and Comcast Corp but has not found a buyer yet. The television network has offered to sell half of the controlling family’s shares, of which 59 per cent is pledged as collateral to lenders.

Jio stormed the market in 2016 with free calls and cheap data and forced some rivals to retreat or merge. Bharti, once number 1, has been relegated to second position after Vodafone’s local unit combined with billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Idea Cellular.

War Chest

While Bharti has been adding some digital services to its portfolio, such as apps for e-books and music, its scale has not matched Jio, which already offers a bouquet of services including Saavn, a music app, television, news and movies.

In February, Bharti revealed plans to raise as much as Rs 32000 crores ($4.6 billion) from a rights issue and bond sales to build a war chest as competition with Jio intensifies. Last year, Bharti entered into a content deal with Zee for exclusive videos on Airtel applications.

Bharti and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd plan to make a combined offer of about Rs 6150 crores to acquire about 60 per cent of Dish TV India Ltd, CNBC-TV18 reported on Thursday, citing people it did not identify.

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