TV18 Broadcast Limited announced its results for the quarter ended 31st Dec 2021.
TV18 reported its highest ever EBITDA at Rs. 355cr with margins of 23%; Not only did News business see a sharp improvement in profitability but Entertainment business also continued to deliver strong margins
Strong revenue growth momentum continued during the quarter as the Company reported its highest ever quarterly revenue of Rs. 1,567cr (+15.1% YoY), despite the pandemic induced headwinds faced by the Movie business
Colors was the #2 channel in the Hindi genre; Voot continued to see growth in paid subscriber base driven by impact properties
Viacom18 added basketball to its sports portfolio by entering into a multi-year partnership with NBA
Performance highlights
Rs. 355cr EBITDA, consolidated operating margin at 22.7%
News business saw a sharp improvement in margin to 27.2%; revenue was up 13% YoY
Entertainment business margin was at 21.4%; revenue was up 16% YoY
PBT rose 24% YoY to Rs. 344cr driven by growth in revenues, controlled opex and lower finance costs
Strong ad growth momentum continues
TV industry saw an all-time high advertising volumes in the third quarter driven by strong consumer demand, increased spending by existing brands for a higher share of voice and new advertisers using the medium to widen their reach.
Buoyed by the advertising demand and a robust viewership share, both Entertainment and News businesses delivered a strong growth in advertising revenues with YTD revenues surpassing full year FY21 level.
Domestic subscription revenue continues to be stable
Domestic subscription revenue for the quarter was flattish YoY while International subscription revenue saw a decline. The implementation timeline of NTO 2.0 regulation was postponed during the quarter by the regulator to 1st April’22 even as the litigation regarding its validity continued in the Supreme Court of India.
Viacom18 expands its sports portfolio with NBA partnership
Viacom18 entered into a multi-year partnership with NBA to provide live coverage of the regular season of basketball games and marquee events through its television channels and digital platforms. Basketball is one of the world’s most watched sports in the world and a localized marketing outreach and consumer-connect program will help build fandom for the sport in India.
Viacom18 also has the rights of major footballing events and leagues – FIFA World Cup
2022, La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy) and Ligue 1 (France), Cinch Premiership (Scotland) and other sporting events like ATP Masters Tennis, Abu Dhabi T10 Cricket, World Boxing Championship and Road Safety World Cricket Series.
Viacom18 has been expanding its sports offering with a belief that sports, especially live sports, will complement the current entertainment offering and will help strengthen the consumer value proposition of the network, on both broadcast and digital platforms.
Voot’s paid subscriber base continues to see a strong growth
Voot‘s paid subscriber base (Voot Select) saw strong growth during the quarter driven by the new season of Bigg Boss. With a 24×7 live stream, access to the latest episodes a day before, and plenty of exclusive and curated content around content, it was one of the key drivers of subscriber acquisition. The show garnered 15bn+ minutes of watch time (AVOD+SVOD) with a daily TSV of 64 minutes during the quarter.
TV entertainment network maintained its strong viewership performance
Share of our entertainment network in the non-news genre was 11.0% with Colors being the #2 channel in the pay Hindi GEC genre. The channel dominated the early prime time and launched new fiction and impact shows to strengthen its viewership share.
News genre viewership at overall industry level declined during the quarter even as it continued to see event driven spikes. Our portfolio of news channels is well diversified with presence in business and general news across languages which helps us to strengthen revenue salience.
Mr. Adil Zainulbhai, Chairman of TV18, said: “We are building a strong and sustainable media franchise which not only delivers quality content to Indian audience but also value to the shareholders. Over the last few years, we have taken several significant steps which have helped us achieve the turn around on profitability front and it is really encouraging to see a visible shift in the margin profile of our businesses. As content consumption continues to grow across mediums, our aim is to build platforms of choice for consumers looking for news and entertainment content in their local languages, movies and leading sports events.”