Company posts fifth straight quarter of revenue growth; H1 consolidated revenue up by 10% to Rs. 1,061 crores.
Network18 Media & Investments Ltd reported a 9.4% increase in consolidated operating revenue for the September quarter, extending its growth streak to a fifth consecutive quarter.
Consolidated operating revenue for the quarter increased to Rs. 545 crore, as compared Rs. 498 crore for the same quarter a year earlier. The revenue growth for the company has come at a time when the overall advertising inventory consumption for the news genre declined by ~13% as corporate spends continued to be impacted by the West Asia conflict, weak monsoon and television ratings blackout.
The company said that the demand for government-linked advertising (Centre and State government campaigns, PSUs, spends by political parties) was strong for the second consecutive quarter.
Consolidated operating EBITDA margin was at 3.4% (Rs 19 crore) in the September quarter, compared to -0.1% (Rs -0.5 crore) in the year-ago period.
The growth in company’s revenue was primarily driven by its content studio subsidiary as advertising growth was subdued. Connected TV continued to be a bright spot, showing robust growth as an emerging revenue stream. Company’s diversified business and strong positions across markets have helped it maintain revenue momentum even during a challenging period for the industry.
The H1 revenue for the company increased by 10% to Rs 1061 crore, as compared to Rs 966 crore for the same period last fiscal. The H1FY27 EBIDTA margin was at 2.5%.
Mr. Adil Zainulbhai, Chairman of Network18, said: “We delivered a resilient operating performance during the quarter despite a challenging and dynamic macroeconomic environment. While external factors continued to influence industry sentiment and consumer demand, our focus remained firmly on strengthening our core offerings, enhancing audience engagement, and driving execution across our businesses. Our continued progress across key operating metrics reflects the strength of our strategy, the quality of our brands, and the commitment of our teams. We believe our strong portfolio, growing digital presence, and disciplined approach to growth position us well to capitalize on emerging opportunities and create long-term value for all stakeholders.
Network18 also consolidated its digital leadership. The company remained India’s largest digital news network with about 330 million monthly users and maintained a clear lead on YouTube, generating more than 2 times the video views of its nearest competitor during the quarter.
Network18 reinforced its leadership in digital news segment through scale, audience growth and platform dominance across YouTube, CTV and other social platforms.
The Off-platform reach and engagement metrics of Network18 continued to strengthen its credentials as India’s #1 news network, across social platforms. The network recorded over 15 billion video views on Youtube (+17% YoY) during the quarter, ~2x of the nearest competitor.
Combined with the other big 3rd party platform, Facebook, views grew 30% YoY, reflecting a strong growth in social video consumption. Total social footprint of the network crossed 470 million followers, highlighting the scale of reach and influence. News18 India,
CNN-News18, CNBC-TV18 and CNBC Awaaz retained their #1 positions in their respective YouTube categories throughout the quarter. 8 of our regional brands were also leaders in their respective markets. Connected TV engagement grew 27% YoY, with genre leading average concurrent viewers during prime-time across multiple channels.
Moneycontrol retained its leadership in financial news, with more than one million paid subscribers to Moneycontrol Pro. The platform had more than 3x Time-Spent and Page Views compared to the nearest competitor, highlighting its industry-leading engagement metrics. In line with its continued approach of adding new product features to offer more value to its users, the platform launched ‘Corp Lens’, which provides access to financials of unlisted companies. Another new feature, ‘Stock Note’, enables users to journal their observations on the stock page. Subscription products, Moneycontrol Pro and Moneycontrol Super Pro, continued to see good traction, with Pro retaining leadership as the most subscribed financial news platform with over 1 million users. Moneycontrol’s fintech business maintained strong momentum during the quarter, with secured and unsecured lending seeing strong growth on the platform, driven by expanded partnerships, stronger conversion funnel and improved organic acquisition.
News18.com recorded an 7% sequential increase in unique users, and engagement strengthened. The platform launched a dedicated section for tracking Commonwealth and Asian Games 2026, delivering an immersive experience with live updates, medal tallies and interactive coverage. Autoplay video previews for stories on homepage led to increase in content engagement and CTRs. New AI-powered experience FAQs, topic timelines, and data visualizations across articles, increased news consumption and enhanced user experience. ‘Compare India’ was revived as a consumer discovery platform for users to find latest products, and integration with e-commerce platforms added a monetisation layer. Hyperlocal coverage of Local18 contributed to nearly a quarter of the overall traffic, highlighting the importance and utility of the platform.
Firstpost continues to be the leading destination covering important global affairs with an Indian lens. It has built a strong and loyal audience base on YouTube with the channel’s subscriber count nearing 10 million. Firstpost ranked #2 globally in live news segment and #4 in terms of total YouTube views. Firstpost’s social ecosystem reached 700 million+ views, supported by a subscriber base of 21.5 million. The platform added new content like The Revolutionary, a YouTube series exploring legacy of history’s changemakers and Flaunt, an editorial section covering luxury segments like travel, auto, watches, lifestyle, and home interiors.
Television ratings data has been suspended for over 6 months for the news genre and for more than 3 months for other genres. Prior to the suspension of the ratings data, Network18 was India’s #1 TV news network. Its portfolio of 20 news channels is the largest in India and it was the leader in terms of viewership (all-India viewership share of 13.8%) and reach (230 million people a month, 35% higher than the nearest competitor). It was the leader in key markets – CNBC-TV18 (#1 Business channel with 63.3%+ share), News18 India (#1 Hindi news channel with 12.8% share), and CNN-News18 (#1 English news channel with 36.0% share). It also had strong position in regional markets – Marathi, Kannada, West Bengal and leadership in several Hindi speaking regional markets.