Zee ops revenue rises; hopes to cut sports biz loss

Below is an edited transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18.

Q: Could explain the key highlights of your performance in Q1?

A: If you look at Zee's results for the first quarter of fiscal 2013, the total consolidated operating revenues have grown by 21% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 843 crore.

All components of Zee's revenue growth, whether it is advertising or subscription, have grown substantially. Advertising revenues have grown by 18% y-o-y to Rs 447 crore during the quarter and subscription revenues have grown by 19% y-o-y to go to Rs 364 crore during the quarter.

So, Zee Entertainment has posted a very encouraging and robust performance in boosting revenue during the quarter ended June 30, 2012.

Our EBITDA margins are at 27.7% level for the quarter and the margins are at Rs 233 crore. That’s very encouraging because they are an improvement from margins in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012 and also because of our growth in market share across the board.

Our sports segment has not been making money and we have improved the reduction in losses. Our losses in the sports segment for this quarter are Rs 21 crore.

Q: What kind of guidance are you now giving for the coming quarters?

A: We don't give specific guidance for our businesses. But this year, we are investing in content and as compared to last year we have increased the overall number of hours of programming.

We have also launched a few more shows in the last one or two months. All of these shows have been very well received by our viewers and therefore we are very confident that our business is doing relatively better than other participants in the industry.

There is some weakness as far as growth in overall advertising spend is concerned, so we may not be looking at very substantial growth this year.