Q1-10: NDTV Reports Rs. 834.1M Consolidated Loss; Revenues Up, Costs Down

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The effect of cost-cutting and layoffs announced at the and of FY09 by media company NDTV is evident in this quarters financial results: personnel expenditure was down 9.89 percent from Q1 2008-09, and 51.38 percent quarter on quarter on a standalone basis. On a consolidated basis, personnel exenditure was down 6.65 percent year-on-year. The company reported a 8.97 percent year on year reduction in total expenditure, and plans to reduce costs further over the next few quarters. At Rs. 800.9 million, Operating Income was 14.86 percent higher than in Q1-09, though 4.8 percent lower than the Rs. 841.3 million registered last quarter.

A Rs. 80.5 million EBITDA profit indicates a significant improvement over a Rs. 100.8 million EBITDA loss reported for Q1 last year.

Details: Release | Financials

Consolidated Results

NDTV’s consolidated revenue for Q1-10 grew by 9.45 percent to Rs. 1306.9 million compared to Rs 1194.1 million for the same quarter last year. EBITDA loss, declined by 37.3percent to Rs. 576.6 million, from Rs. 918.8 million in the same quarter last year. The company reduced expenditure by 32.67 percent, and grew revenues by 5.99 percent quarter on quarter. On a consolidated basis, NDTV reported a Net Loss of Rs. 834.1 million, down from a 5266.4 million profit reported for the same quarter last year, but an improvement over the Rs. 1603.6 million loss reported for Q4 2008-09.

Business Performance

DTH, IPTV & Mobile
NDTV Profit & NDTV Good Times have been launched in the US on DirecTV, USA’s largest DTH network and NDTV 24×7 has also been launched on the mobile platform in the Middle East through DuMobile, a content aggregator. The Network has also tied-up with Bharti to make NDTV the preferred News channel for any Bharti powered TV in Indian airports. NDTV GoodTimes is now available on IPTV in Singapore on Sing Tel.

NDTV Convergence
No financial details regarding NDTV Convergence, yet again, but the company claims that pageviews rose by over 50 percent over the previous quarter. 50 percent increase in pageviews in just a quarter is quite dramatic, particularly for an established media site like NDTV. Do note that no source for this data has been quoted, and though we don’t endorse Alexa and Google Ad Planner, do take note of the following trends depicted by them, in terms of daily unique visitors as shown by Google Ad Planner, and Daily Pageviews depicted by Alexa.com:

A 50 percent increase in pageviews? We’ve written to NDTV requesting information on the source of that data, and perhaps a chart depicting the same. Remember that NDTV launched a new site for NDTV.com earlier this year, and the last quarter has seen two significant events: the Indian Elections, followed by the Indian Budget, which NDTV streamed live online.

Television
NDTV claims that their English News channel was 24×7 emerged as the clear leader with 53 percent viewership on Election Day according to the GfK-Mode survey of the top 13 cities in India, and that NDTV India is among the top 4 Hindi News channels according to “some sources”. According to TAM data, NDTV HINDU, launched this May, has garnered an 8.2% market share, over the last 8 weeks in Chennai city, overtaking channels like Headlines Today, NewsX and BBC World in the English News genre. The company claims that the TV show “Rakhi Ka Swayamvar” had a record breaking opening of 4.1 TVR, taking NDTV Imagines’ weekly GRPs to 138.