Businessworld has an analysis of the rising losses at TV broadcasting firms.
Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private equity, venture capital and M&A deals in India. View free samples of Venture Intelligence newsletters and reports. Email the author at arun@ventureintelligence.inNDTV’s results too are nothing to write home about, but analysts have noted that the company has trimmed costs successfully. Though its consolidated revenues rose in the first quarter by 9.6 per cent to Rs 131 crore compared to Q1 of the previous year, NDTV turned in a net loss of Rs 81 crore. Revenue from news operations dipped 5 per cent to Rs 80.1 crore from the Q1 of the previous year, despite additional ad revenue from coverage of the national elections and the budget. An area of concern for the company is its English news channel NDTV falling behind Times Now, currently the No. 1. For the whole year, the company made an operating loss of Rs 484 crore.
...“I don’t expect ad revenues to improve before October this year,” says Raj Nayak, CEO of NDTV Media, who markets airtime for NDTV as well as several other channels. “With an increasing number of channels, audiences have got more fragmented, while the advertising pie has remained stagnant.”
