Q: Q1 numbers too, there are operating losses at TV18. By when do you think you can start reporting profits at an operating and a net level along with your subsidiaries, the operations at net, Infomedia all put together when can you start to get back to profitability again?

A: We should be able to hit operating profitability by the end of the year because the operating profitability of the business news channels, although operating on a 17% margin which is much lower than what they have been operating on, is positive. Web18 is headed towards operating breakeven. Infomedia as well should be operating breakeven and Newswire18 is almost operating breakeven. So I think operating profitability is pretty much a given and we should hit it before the end of year.

When you look at the complete bottomline profitability — if you look at the results, the problem is only one; we had Rs 22 crore of standalone loss on TV18 and we had an interest cost of Rs 30-31 crore. So there is only one problem on the balance sheet and that is the debt and that is something which is not something that we are acknowledging today, we have acknowledged it in the past. So we have to get that debt off the balance sheet. Once you take that debt off the balance sheet, the interest number comes down and we come back to bottomline profitability.

We also have clearly shared with our shareholders the roadmap to taking that debt off the balance sheet. We are doing a rights issue, are hopefully in the final stages of regulatory approval. Once we have that rights issue, we have got Rs 300 crore loan liability which will be extinguished by early next year or thereabouts. Just that one extinguishing of the loan liability takes off Rs 45 crore of interest burden on an annual basis from the balance sheet. So the bottomline profitability depends on when we can take a large amount of that debt off operating profitability. As things stand today, there’s no reason why we should not be healthily there by the last quarter this year.

Q: Just to clarify, operating profitability by the end of calendar year 2009 or by the end of FY10?

A: I think calendar year 2009. We are about Rs 9-10 crore positive on the business news channels, we are about Rs 4 crore negative on Web18, we are about Rs 2 crore negative on Infomedia and we are about Rs 40-50 lakhs negative on Newswire18. So we are pretty much breakeven already. So I think I am being conservative when I say last quarter this calendar year but there is no reason why we won’t hit operating profitability. The problem is the interest number that is coming in which is a colossal Rs 31 crore and for that we have a roadmap laid out to reduce that.

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