NDTV Q2-09 Revenues At Rs. 128 Crores; NDTV Convergence FY08 Loss At Rs. 5.5 Crores

NDTV Ltd has reported revenues of Rs. 128 crores for the quarter ending September 30th 2008 (Q2-09), up 65 percent, from Rs. 77.5 crores for the same quarter last year. The group has reported a net loss (consolidated) of 119 crores, with a standalone loss of 13 crores for NDTV Ltd. According to the release, NDTV Imagine Films, the groups films company, is in the process of developing and producing scripts. According to NDTV, NBC Universal is a potential partner for this venture. There’s synergy with NDTV Showbiz – a Bollywood focused channel that the company launched in August.

Most importantly, NDTV has, as reported earlier, has decided to separate its business into News and Entertainment, which will free up the Entertainment (and indeed the Digital Media business NDTV Convergence) for further investment.

Download the Q2 financials here.

NDTV Convergence
My quarterly requests to NDTV for more inputs on Convergence have been turned down. In this earnings release, NDTV has mentioned that pageviews for Convergence in the last quarter are up, and they’re exploring tie-ups to expand its range of services. One tie-up was announced yesterday, and another tie-up, with Career Builder India for jobs, was reported by WATBlog. Going through NDTV’s Annual Report, we were pleasantly surprised to find details of their financials:

By itself, NDTV Convergence reported a rather low turnover of Rs. 4.9 crores, and a net loss of Rs. 5.5 crores for the full year ending 31st March 2008. For three quarters of the last fiscal, NDTV Convergence sales were being handled by NDTV Media, and probably being bundled along with TV inventory as an add-on. NDTV Media also handles ad sales for MSN’s Desktop TV in India.

That would probably explain why, in January this year, NDTV Convergence took over selling their own inventory separately. MediaNama contacted Sanjay Trehan, CEO of NDTV Convergence for updates on how the first two quarters of this fiscal year have been, but he declined to comment on the financials. In the past, whenever I’ve contacted NDTV Ltd for comments on Convergence financials, they’ve declined to comment.

Download the NDTV Ltd Annual report here. Convergence results are on page 76.

One Comment

sane man October 15, 2008

Well its no brainer like most internet/web based model convergence also must be bleeding big time. Its catch 22 situations for all such models. If you invest you bleed further, if you dont you lose market share or share of eyeball. Note what happened to Web18. it has failed to raise money and now will have live with curtailed investments or larger operating loss. Slowing adspend will only increase the pain.

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