MUMBAI: ETC Network Ltd informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today that the company will hold a board meeting on 21 April.
The board will consider the financial results for the year ended 31 March.
The company also informed the exchange that a meeting of the board of directors will consider buyback of equity shares, among other things.
At the BSE, ETC fell 3.06 per cent to close at Rs 36.45. The scrip opened for the day at Rs 37.60 and touched a high of Rs 37.45.
MUMBAI: It’s official. ETC Networks has announced that its soon to be launched Punjabi religious channel will be christened etc Khalsa. The announcement was made in Amritsar today on the occasion of the 400th Year of Prakash Utsav of Guru Granth Sahib. Uplinking permission is however still awaited from the government.
The dedicated 24-hour religious channel, besides telecasting live Gurbani from the Golden Temple, would also focus on the younger generation ‘which needs exposure to religious teachings, as propagated by the 10 Gurus and depicted in the Guru Granth Sahib as well as the tremendous history of the Sikhs over the past five centuries,” ETC Networks CEO JS Kohli says.
The channel will have special programmes targeted at Sikh youth as well as other regular programmes like Katha, Kirtan and Kavi Darbars, according to the network. The Gurbani, a salient feature of etc Punjabi thus far, will be the anchor of the new channel. While etc Punjabi becomes a mainstream entertainment channel, the programming on the new channel will be a mix, says Kohli.
While the telecast of the Gurbani had thus far forbidden getting ad revenues, the commercial breaks during allied programming related to the Gurbani on Khalsa would allow the exploitation of ad revenue, he says.
Says etc Punjabi president Rabindra Narayan, “Like Christian channels do, etc Khalsa would also help in spreading the message of the Gurus to a worldwide audience as they would now be enlightened in great detail about the world’s youngest religion which preaches a scientific way of living in harmony with nature.”
Also in the pipeline is a mega serial on the history of the Sikhs. The serial, to be initially telecast in Punjabi on Khalsa, is also likely to be dubbed into Hindi for airing on parent Zee TV. Says Khalsa’s programming VP Rajiee M Shinde, “In order to bring alive the greatness of the Sikhs, our endeavor would be to soon create a mega serial on the lines of Ramayan and Mahabharat on ETC Khalsa about Sikh history.”
etc Punjabi meanwhile, is offering 18 hours of live telecast of celebrations of 400 years of Sri Guru Granth Saheb’s installation from Amritsar. This will involve sacrifice of all the other programming along with advertisements to give the devotees a chance to watch the proceedings at Amritsar uninterrupted, says the channel. This telecast will begin early tomorrow (1 September) at 3:30 am.
MUMBAI: The Zee group controlled ETC Network reported a net profit of Rs 27.4 million for the quarter ended 31 December, 2003 as compared to Rs 41.5 million for the quarter ended 31 December, 2002.
Total income of the company increased from Rs 124.4 million in the Q3-2002 to Rs 132.2 million in the quarter ended 31 December, 2003. The results were taken on record by the board of directors at a meeting held on 20 January.
As of yesterday, ETC Networks was among the select few media scrips on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) which showed a gain. The company’s shares opened at Rs 55.30 and closed at Rs 56.50 thereby amounting to a gain of 2.17 per cent. The total number of shares that were traded on the BSE on 20 January were 1,25,858.
MUMBAI: etc networks recently completed one year of its association with the Zee family.
To mark the occasion different religious groups offered prayers to commemorate the network’s belief of Aakhir Dil Hai Hindustani.
Founder Chairman of Zee, Subhash Chandra offers flowers on 2 April at a function held to mark the first anniversary of etc’s becoming a part of the Zee Network.
According to a release, etc (music) and etc Punjabi have done extremely well in their respective genres.
The release states that during the 52 weeks from January 2002 to December 2002 etc (music) continued to maintain its market leadership with an average of 38 per cent market share among the music channels in India (Source TAM; age 4+). Also, besides the lead in the 4+ age group, etc is the leader in 15+ age group SEC ABC, the release adds.
During the same time period of 52 weeks, etc Punjabi claims to have dominated its market by taking 58 per cent market share among all Punjabi channels, the release informs.
Some of the new shows launched on etc Music include Baaps Of Bollywood- a show dedicated to veteran film artistes, Pandey Pillai 2- a musical comedy, On Air- a film based show, Sun-N-Dance, Gagar Mein Sagar – a show on parallel healing and Bhakti Sutra- show on Art Of Living by spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
Citing reasons for etc Channel Punjabi’s growing popularity the release states that the channel has been associated with some of the biggest and most successful Punjabi music events like Aaja Nach Le, Highway Hungama, Bhatinda Blast, Chak de Phatte, Dhol Beat and the recently held three day musical extravaganza in Delhi, Punjabi Mela 2003. Another first for the channel was the live telecast of the recently held Aayi Baisakhi event .
etc has also started extending its reach in the overseas markets, informs the release. In UK, Zee UK has launched a separate channel called Alpha etc Punjabi wherein Gurbani and etc programmes form a major part of the programming content.
ETC Networks Limited has declared a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs24.3 million on a turnover of Rs538.2 million in the financial results for the year ended March 31, 2001.
On the expenditures front, 67.3 per cent went into programming and telecast and cost the network Rs288.1 million. With a paid-up capital of Rs116.99 million, the audited report shows earnings per share (EPS) is Rs2.08.
Into its second year of operations, etc channel has not only consistently retained the top position amongst the music-based channels in viewership rating but also translated this popularity to impressive revenue and profit figures, a company release states.
etc Channel Punjabi, ETC Networks’ regional channel, is also doing extremely well and about to complete a year of operations, the release states. The locking in of the exclusive rights to telecast Gurbani live from Golden Temple at Amritsar has proved a great hit with Punjabi audiences.
Now the channel is poised to tap revenue from international markets, having tied with TV Asia, a leading Hindi channel in the USA while negotiations are also on and in the finalisation stages in UK, Europe and Canada, the release adds.
On the transmission front, the company is very shortly going to convert both the channels to digital services from the current free to air analog service, which the network hopes will cut costs down to about 30 per cent of what exists at present.
And while on transmission, ETC Networks is the first channel to get government clearance to build a commercial teleport in Mumbai. Once the teleport is commissioned it will reduce the operating costs of the channel and also provide additional revenue streams for the company by offering uplink services to other private channels and Internet service providers.
Commenting on the first year result of the company, Jagjit Singh Kohli, managing director of ETC Networks Ltd. says: “We remain committed in our determination to emerge into one of the leading players in the satellite television scenario of the country and maximizing shareholders wealth. We look upon the time ahead with great expectation towards building on the enterprise value, in earning higher growth in advertising and other sources of revenue.”