ITV

Tag: Jawahar Goel

  • TRAI Open House: Aggregators given another week to respond

    TRAI Open House: Aggregators given another week to respond

    NEW DELHI: Television aggregators were today given a period of one week to give any recommendations they may have on the regulations relating to them issued earlier by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

    At an Open House that was well-attended, TRAI Chairman Rahul Khullar said any stakeholder wanting to give views in writing may do so within a week.

    Around 200 persons representing all stakeholders were present at the meeting, and put forth their views. While a majority said there was need for regulations, many felt that TRAI needed to fine-tune the regulations. MediaPro CEO Arun Kapoor, Dish TV’s Jawahar Goel, legal representatives of Airtel, Reliance, IndiaCast, apart from cable operators such as Vicki Choudhary, Roop Sharma, Money Oberoi were present at the open house.

    Khullar had TRAI Advisers N Parameswaran and Wasim Ahmed and other senior officials also present in the house.

    According to TRAI spokespersons, the discussions were frank and free and a final view would be taken after written representations are received.

    An aggregator attendee at the open house said that it was apparent from Khullar’s body language that he was not too happy with the state of affairs in the aggregation business today.

    Says he: “Khullar made three or four very important observations. The first is that aggregated bouquets of channels owned by rival bouquets creates a monopoly situation which is not a healthy one and needs to be addressed. Second: he recognised that the networks like Star, Zee, Sun, Network18 own channels across several corporate entities as licence holders and this needs to be considered. Third: smaller broadcasters and networks could face problems in distribution across the vast Indian cable TV landscape and this also should be borne in mind. Finally, he acknowledged that aggregation can help keep prices in check on account of bulk discounting”

    Adds another attendee: “Change is something that Khullar wants to bring in. We expect some change; the clout that aggregators enjoy is not something that the regulator wants to see continuing. He clearly wants aggregators to be brought under control. We are reading the writing on the wall, and we are readying for the change. How we manage this change is something we have to deal with.”

  • Dish TV slashes losses in FY 2013; outlook improves

    Dish TV slashes losses in FY 2013; outlook improves

    MUMBAI: The Zee TV group DTH service provider Dish TV India Ltd (Dish TV) is slowly but gradually emerging from a sea of red ink; especially if one looks at the company‘s financials for the year ended 31 March 2013. Losses have been more than halved to Rs 66 crore from Rs 133.14 crore in the previous fiscal. Even its quarter losses have been reduced. Additionally, it added new subscribers in Q4 2013 at 200,000, taking up its net subscribers to 10.7 million.

    And things look likely to get even better for it if one goes by the massive 27 per cent it commands of the DTH market, and the fact that it is looking at raising average revenues per user (ARPUs), reducing customer subsidies in the medium term and in the process increasing profitability.

    Let us look at the standalone Q4-2013 results as against the corresponding Q4-2012

    Revenues for Q4 FY 2013 stand at Rs 555.40 crore, a rise of 7.5 per cent from the corresponding last year quarter Rs 516.44 crore. Subscription revenues at Rs 500 crore recorded a growth of 15.3 per cent. Total expenses too went up 7.4 per cent, standing at Rs 580.36 crore in Q4 FY 2013 (Rs 540 crore in Q4 FY 2012). Programming and content cost accounted for a large chunk of this increase rising 34 per cent during this period to Rs 196.72 crore as against Rs 146.76 crore.

    Although Dish TV reported a loss of Rs 43.62 crore, it is a 11 per cent improvement over the Q4-2012‘s loss of Rs 49 crore.

    Let us take a look at the Q4-2013 financials in comparison with Q3-2013

    Revenues in Q4-2013 have marginally decreased by Rs 2.42 crore as against Rs 557.82 crore reported in Q3-2013. While programming and content costs have risen by over 20 per cent to Rs 196.72 crore (Rs 162.69 crore in the immediate preceding quarter), it has got more efficient while reducing its selling and distribution expenses to Rs 74.2 crore (Rs 90 crore.). Additionally, it scaled down its advertising expenses by 30 per cent to Rs 16.6 crore (Rs 23.7 crore). EBITDA in Q4 2013 fell 12.8 per cent to Rs 120 crore against Rs 137.77 crore in Q3-2013. And losses fell to Rs 43.62 crore as opposed to Rs 44.48 crore.

    Dish TV has increased its new subscriber prices and pack prices in the past few months and has managed to bring down its subscriber acquisition cost (SAC) to Rs 1,996 as against Rs 2,201 in the immediate preceding quarter.

    The company added 200,000 net subscribers in Q4-2013- its lowest net new adds for a quarter since 2007 – taking its net subs base to 10.7 million. This low net add figure has alarmed some observers; but this has happened at a time when India is going through a gut wrenching change of digitisation of its cable TV infrastructure. Phase II of digitisation has been moving rather slowly with cable TV operaors in many cities which were supposed to come under the digitisation hammer fighting the government‘s mandate in courts and getting stay orders. So, many subscribers there are continuing to receiving analogue signals and hence have not moved to digital as yet. Hopefully, in the coming days as digitisation moves forward DTH providers will have some spillover benefits of subs moving to digital services.

    Dish TV‘s ARPUs were also lower for Q4-2013 at Rs 157 as against Rs 160 for the immediate preceding quarter.

    Let us look at the consolidated FY-2013 results as against FY-2012

    FY-2013‘s consolidated revenues stood at Rs 2,166.80 crore, a rise of 10.7 per cent as against last fiscal‘s Rs 1957.9 crore. It reported an EBITDA of Rs 575.9 crore as against Rs 496 crore last fiscal (a 16.1 per cent increase) with its EBITDA margin standing at 26.7 per cent.

    It has reported a 5.1 per cent YoY increase in content costs as against an overall increase of 11.5 per cent in total expenses to Rs 2,215 crore (Rs 1,983.8 crore).

    What is noteworthy is the way it has managed to bring down the net loss for FY-2013 to Rs 66 crore compared to Rs 133.14 crore in FY-2012. The earnings per share (EPS) too has shown a massive improvement from a negative Rs 1.25 to a negative Rs 0.62.

    Dish TV has a bouquet of 400 plus channels and it added another five HD channels in April 2013 taking its offering to 42 HD channels and services on its platform. Most analysts are bullish on the stock, currently trading at Rs 64.30.

    Says Dish TV chairman Subash Chandra, “In the media sector, digitisation, though not fully up to speed, holds big potential for the industry. DTH platforms, in particular, look forward to a level playing field contributing to meaningfully higher ARPUs and stickier subscriber bases over time. Dish TV‘s industry leading initiative, to hike acquisition and pack price is likely to be a catalyst to achieve that.”

    Dish TV recently launched India‘s first standard definition recorder, Dish+ with an unlimited recording facility. This was initially launched in the 42 cities covered under Phase 1 and Phase 2 of digitisation and is now available across India as a value for money differentiator over its competitors‘ offerings.

    Dish TV managing director Jawahar Goel points out that fiscal 2013 saw most players in the Indian DTH industry evolve to the next level and Dish TV led the industry and helped it pull off a significant increase in the new subscriber acquistion price over the last several months thereby reducing the effective cash burn per subscriber.

    “While the resultant decline in industry gross additions is marginal, it is expected to be well compensated by the quality of subscribers,” he highlights. “There was no respite though from the multiple taxation which the DTH industry is reeling under. Uncertainty on the rollout of goods & services tax (GST) continues to be an overhang on the earnings potential of the industry,”

    He is quite confident that DTH will score over cable TV thanks to the strong service back up the sector has built and its increasing focus on value growth rather than chasing subscriber numbers.

    “On the digitisation front, the MSO‘s readiness on encryption, packaging, dunning and effective business processes is taking undue time. With increasing expectations, customers however will gradually align to a technologically progressive and service oriented mass-scale platform, albeit at a premium. Dish TV has experienced strong though early signals of churned subscribers getting back to its platform in select markets in the current quarter,” says Goel says in a parting statement.

    Other points for FY 2013 to be noted are:

    * The company set up a 70:30 joint venture company Dish T V Lanka (Pvt) Ltd on 25 April 2012 under the laws of Sri Lanka with Satnet (Pvt Ltd). Satnet has a DTH licence and the joint venture will work on providing DTH related service in the island country.

    * The company has extended the life of the consumer premises equipment (CPE) for depreciation purposes of to five years for equipment activated on or after 1 April 2012. Upto 31 March 2012, in certain cases, the one-time advance contribution towards the CPEs in the form of rental was being recognized over a period of three years from the activation date. There is no significant impact on financial results of the quarter and year-ended 31 March 2013 on account of change in estimate for revenue recognition.

    * Dish TV’s net-worth as at 31 March 2013 is eroded by its accumulated losses. However, the management has prepared the financial results assuming that the Company will continue as a going concern considering that it has adequate resources in the form of operating cash flows, sanctioned credit facilities from lenders and bank deposits to adequately meet its obligations.

    * The name of the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary in Singapore, namely, Dish TV Singapore Pte Limited was changed to Digital Network Distribution Pte Limited on 12 March 2013. The Company entered into a share purchase Agreement dated 19 March 2013 with a party for transfer of its investment at an agreed price of Sing$12,000. On 1 April 2013, the share holding in Digital Network Distribution Pte Limited was transferred and, accordingly, as at 31 March 2013, the investments has been shown under current maturities of long term investment.

    * During the current year, Direct Media Distribution Ventures Pvt. Ltd (formerly known as Dhaka Warriors Sports Pvt Ltd) disinvested its holding in the Company from 59.86% to 45.24% and consequently, it ceases to be the holding company of Dish TV India Limited.

    *Hitherto, the exchange differences arising from foreign currency borrowing to the extent that they are regarded as an adjustment to interest cost, were treated as borrowing cost in terms of AS – 16, “Borrowing Costs.”

    During the year ended 31 March 2013, pursuant to a clarification dated 9 August 2012 from the MCA, the Company has changed the accounting policy w.e.f. from 1 April 2011, to treat the same as “foreign exchange fluctuation”, to be accounted as per AS – 11 “Effects of Changes in Foreign Exchange Rates,” instead of AS – 16 “Borrowing Costs”.

    This change has resulted in a reversal of finance cost of Rs. 70.68 crore and increase in depreciation by Rs. 11.24 crore during the year ended 31 March 2013. The aforesaid change, resulting in a net gain of Rs 59.44 crore, has been shown as ‘exceptional items’ in the financial results for the year ended 31 March 2013. In this regard, if the company had followed the same accounting policy as in the previous year, finance costs for the year would have been higher by Rs 58.41 crore; depreciation expense would have been lower by Rs 14.15 crore and the loss for the year would have been higher by Rs 44.26 crore.

  • Dish TV plans to raise $200 mn via equity

    Dish TV plans to raise $200 mn via equity

    MUMBAI: Dish TV, India’s largest DTH operator in terms of subscribers, plans to raise up to $200 million via the equity route to fund its expansion programme.

    The promoter holding stands at 64.8 per cent, providing enough leverage to raise capital by either issuing equity shares or through equity-linked instruments.

    Dish TV had earlier taken an enabling resolution to raise up to $200 million, following which it had got US-based Apollo Management to invest $100 million in November 2009.

    “We do not have any plans to raise this amount in the near future. It is an enabling resolution that we have taken,” Dish TV CEO RC Venkateish tells Indiantelevision.com.

    Dish TV has a cash balance of Rs 4.5 billion and is looking at ramping up 3.1 million subscribers this fiscal to take its total base to the 10 million mark. The customer acquisition cost for the direct-to-home (DTH) service provider has dropped from Rs 2147 in the first quarter of FY’11, but still stands at Rs 2083 in Q2.

    “The company does not have any fund requirement at this stage. Perhaps, it wants to build a war chest and utilise the cash if there is a business opportunity. Dish TV may not raise capital in the short run,” says a media analyst who tracks the DTH sector.

    In a cricket-heavy year, the DTH sector expects to mop up 11 million subscribers this fiscal. Dish TV expects the trend to continue in the next fiscal as well.

    For the second-quarter this fiscal, Dish TV has added 0.76 million subscribers and claims to have a robust 27 per cent incremental market share. In the first six months of this fiscal, Dish TV has mopped up 1.4 million new subscribers.

    Says Dish TV India chairman Subhash Chandra, “With 2.8 million subscribers added in the second quarter, the overall market for DTH in the country has already grown to more than 26 million households. In a strong six player market, incremental share over and above a secular number is laudable. Dish TV with an incremental market share of 27 per cent continues to deliver industry leading performance.”

    The company’s net loss has narrowed to Rs 452 million for the three-month period ended September, from Rs 631 million in the trailing quarter. In the year-ago period, the DTH operator had posted a net loss of Rs 562 million.
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    Dish TV’s revenues stand at Rs 3.29 billion, representing a six per cent growth over the trailing quarter and a 27.4 per cent growth over the year-ago period. While subscription revenue accounts for Rs 2.7 billion (up 8 per cent from previous quarter), lease rental is at Rs 550 million.

    The Ebitda for the quarter under review stands at Rs 523 million, up from Rs 391 million posted in the previous quarter.

    Dish TV has been able to maintain its ARPU (average revenue per user) at Rs 139 million despite sizeable customer acquisitions. Low ARPUs, however, remain a matter of concern.

    Says Chandra, “While ARPUs in India remain significantly under-priced compared to similar economies in the world, there exists substantial headroom for growth. Dish TV’s efforts to enhance them with a trade-off between ARPUs and subscriber acquisition is heartening.”

    Dish TV is making efforts to lift its ARPUs. Says Dish TV managing director Jawahar Goel, “Our game changing initiatives and strategic marketing resulted in increased stickiness on the higher value packs and maintenance of ARPUs despite huge activations. In our endeavor to strengthen the overall ARPU levels, amongst other things, a price hike across two popular packs was announced towards the end of the second quarter, the impact of which should be visible in the forthcoming quarters.”

    Dish TV has reduced its content cost as a percentage of subscription revenue to an all time low of 39 per cent. In the previous quarter, the content cost stood at 41 per cent.

    Dish TV’s gross subscriber base stood at 8.3 million for the quarter ended September 2010, while the net subscriber base was 6.8 million. Subscriber churn remained constant at 0.7 per cent per month.

    Advertising expenditure for the first six months was at Rs 430 million, well in line with the overall fiscal’s budget of Rs 950 million.

    “We remain on track to meet our guided acquisition target as well as budgeted revenue and profitability. With recent pricing and operational initiatives, our focus on driving margin improvements and cash generation gets further strengthened,” says Goel.

  • Govt to set up coordination committee with news broadcasters

    Govt to set up coordination committee with news broadcasters

    NEW DELHI: Clearly alarmed by the cascading effect of what it terms as the unending coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks, the Government today decided to set up a coordination committee with broadcasters to ensure some self-regulation to ensure balanced coverage.

    In a meeting with broadcasters presided over by Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting and External Affairs Anand Sharma, the broadcasters were told that their continued coverage was having a negative effect and also affecting tourism and civil aviation sectors.

    Sharma said that while the media in the country was free, it should exercise this independence with restraint and responsibility.

    Interestingly, industrialist and hotel magnate Ratan Tata is understood to have informed the Minister that many people are canceling their bookings in the Taj Hotel in Mumbai because of the repetitive showing of the scenes of the Hotel tower burning.

    Apart from I&B Secretary Sushma Singh and other officials of the Ministry, secretaries of the Ministries of Home (Internal Security), Tourism, and Civil Aviation were present.

    The 20 broadcasters present included TV Today promoter Aroon Purie and Aaj Tak news director QW Naqvi, CNN-IBN and IBN7 editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai, NDTV managing editor Barkha Dutt, India TV chairman Rajat Sharma and Zee Group’s Jawahar Goel.

    The meeting comes even as news broadcasters are still to react on an advisory issued last week on the continual coverage of the terrorist attack in Mumbai.

    In addition, notices had been issued to India TV and Aaj Tak to the effect that the channel’s coverage was creating public panic. India TV had thereafter sent its reply to the Ministry.

    Aaj Tak had been accused of acting in a manner that may affect ’the integrity of the country’.

    One broadcaster described the meeting as routine and said it was the third meeting in the last two weeks.

    The news broadcasters still appear to be divided on their reaction to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s advisory to all news channels not to carry on with the coverage of the Mumbai attacks by showing the same clips which were now several days old and which only created panic.

  • Dish TV appoints Arun Kapoor as CEO

    Dish TV appoints Arun Kapoor as CEO

    MUMBAI: ASC Enterprises has appointed Hutchison Essar South Ltd Arun Kumar Kapoor as Dish TV CEO.

    Kapoor fills in the post that had been left vacant after the departure of Sunil Khanna. Kapoor will be taking charge from 1 November and would be based out of company’s head quarters in Noida, according to an official release.

    Kapoor comes from Hutchison Essar South Limited, where he was functioning in the role of CEO for the Punjab Circle.

    He brings along with him a vast experience of 23 years in various spheres of business across leading organizations in the country. A management graduate from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute, Mumbai, he has been instrumental in setting up and managing operations for Bharti Group/Spice Cell ltd. and lately for Hutch for the Punjab circle, informs the release.

    He was associated with companies like UB Group, Gillette, Pepsi, Spice Cell, Airtel, IBM Daksh and Hutch.

    Announcing Kapoor’s appointment Dish TV business head Jawahar Goel said, “We are glad to have Arun with us. We are confident that his leadership experience will surely provide great impetus to the growth plans of Dish TV.”

  • BBC World to be available on Dish TV

    BBC World to be available on Dish TV

    MUMBAI: BBC World has inked a deal with the first private direct-to-home operator Dish TV. The BBC’s 24-hour international news and information channel will be part of the Dish Welcome package.

    BBC World, recently shifted to from a free-to-air channel to a subscription model. The channel claims to reach around 15 million homes across India via cable TV. And with the deal with Dish TV, the channel’s total distribution will touch 16.5 million Indian homes.

    BBC World attracts a high-profile audience who are modern-minded, educated and like to keep up to date with what’s going on in the world.

    “India is a fast-growing market for multi-channel television and a key market for BBC World. We are delighted to be part of this Dish TV offer as it brings BBC World to a new and dynamic audience,” says BBC World South Asia head of distribution and business development Amit Upadhyay. “The channel is highly regarded in India and has a loyal following. We are pleased to be providing new viewers with our award-winning journalism and news reporting.”

    “In the last year and a half, Dish TV has emerged as one of the fastest growing digital platforms in the country. Our association with BCC World is in line with our commitment to provide the best of infotainment news and information programming available, in India or abroad, to our subscribers. We are sure that Dish TV subscribers would be happy to access BCC World in India shortly, mentioned Dish TV business head Jawahar Goel.

  • BBC World launches on Dish TV

    BBC World launches on Dish TV

    MUMBAI: BBC World has been launched on DTH platform Dish TV. The channel is now available to all of Dish TV’s 1.5 million subscribers and is available on the ‘Dish Welcome’ package.

    BBC World claims to reach around 15 million homes across India via cable TV and this new deal brings the channel’s total distribution to 16.5 million Indian homes.

    BBC World, South Asia head of distribution and business development Amit Upadhyay says, “India is a fast-growing market for multi-channel television and a key market for BBC World. We are delighted to be part of this Dish TV offer as it brings BBC World to a new and dynamic audience.

    “The channel is highly regarded in India and has a loyal following. We are pleased to be providing new viewers with our award-winning journalism and news reporting.”

    Dish TV business head Jawahar Goel says, “In the last year and a half, Dish TV has emerged as one of the fastest growing digital platforms in the country. Our association with BCC World is in line with our commitment to provide the best of infotainmentnews and information programming available, in India or abroad, to our subscribers. We are sure that Dish TV subscribers would be happy to access BCC World in India shortly”.

  • Government allays fears of media industry on Broadcast Bill

    Government allays fears of media industry on Broadcast Bill

    NEW DELHI: Fazed by strident criticism of certain provisions in a proposed Broadcast Bill, the government on Monday agreed to take industry’s concerns into consideration while drafting the legislation.
    Briefing reporters after a meeting with the industry representatives on the eve of India’s Independence Day, information and broadcasting secretary SK Arora said, “We have agreed to take into account the views of the industry when we draft a final Bill on the subject.”

    A Press Trust of India report said Arora also sought to assuage apprehensions of the industry on a provision dubbed “draconian” in certain sections of the media regarding the inspection, search and seizure of equipments.

    “These are just apprehensions and the government has no intention to encroach on the independence of the media,” PTI quoted Arora as saying.

    According to Arora, “This kind of criminal offences clause will be applicable only for three offences — unlicenced activity; telecasting anti-national content and something that may be sensitive from security perspective; and if certain directions of the Government on security and national integrity are not carried out.”

    However, Indiantelevision.com learns that what was billed as a big ticket industry-government interaction did not turn out so as quite a few captains of the industry kept away from the meeting and Delhi, which is reeling under heavy security due to threats of large scale terrorist activity.

    Interestingly, the meeting also got broken up into several smaller interactions with the minister and secretary briefing different people in different rooms.

    Dasmunsi is also said to have expressed his ignorance on TV channels being directed by his ministry to scroll a public apology for three days for breaching advertising code.

    Those who attended Monday’s meeting included Zee group’s Jawahar Goel, Discovery India head Deepak Shourie, India TV CEO Chintamani Rao, NDTV Profit head Vikram Chandra and Business Standard CEO and editor TN Ninan.

    Industry bodies representatives included those from Indian Media Group, Indian Broadcasting Foundation, Indian Newspaper Society and several other media companies.

  • Times Now and Zoom hop on to Dish TV

    Times Now and Zoom hop on to Dish TV

    MUMBAI: The direct-to-home (DTH) platform Dish TV will now be offering two more channels, both from the Bennett Coleman stable — the lifestyle television channel Zoom and the English news and current affairs channel Times Now.

    The DTH opportunity will help spur higher penetration and create even more attractive business prospects for the two channels in the television market, an official release states.

    Essel Group additional vice-chairman Jawahar Goel says, “The availability of the hugely popular news channel from the Times Group, namely, Times Now and the lifestyle channel Zoom on Dish TV beefs up our already robust news content and lifestyle offering. We expect significant consumer response and growth in the subscriber base for Dish TV and for the DTH market in India due to this tie-up.”

    According to Times Now CEO Sunil Lulla, “The partnership with Dish TV will further augment the growing popularity of Times Now and will enhance the news viewing experience of the users.”

    Talking specifically about the synergies between viewers of Dish TV and Zoom, its CEO Suresh Bala adds, “Dish TV provides us the ideal platform for reaching a larger base of upscale consumers with interest in the lifestyle genre. Zoom prides itself in bringing the latest in trends and lifestyle to our consumers and we believe strongly that our availability on the latest technology Dish TV platform enhances our positioning.”

    At present, Dish TV, an Essel Group company with 1.3 million subscribers across the country, carries more than 160 channels, including all the popular cable channels and some exclusive channels.

  • Broadcast Bill: Ficci to examine legal implications

    Broadcast Bill: Ficci to examine legal implications

    NEW DELHI: A meeting on the draft Broadcast Bill 2006, which has been tormenting the media industry over the draconian clauses it contains, has decided that a core committee should be formed to examine legal implications of the proposed legislation.

    Organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) here today, representatives of media organizations were unanimous on one issue: the draft Bill should be opposed; either partially or fully. Indiantelevision.com learns after talking to various participants that Ficci would join issue with other apex media organizations to frame a representation to the government on issues bothering the media industry.

    For example, while a representative of one media organisation opined that instead of opposing the Bill in its entirety only certain sections should be opposed, others felt that the whole Bill ought to be junked.

    However, after sifting through various opinion it seems that participants were more worried over two issues — cross media restrictions and government’s powers to crack down on TV channels, including news, for reports that it thinks are ‘biased’ and ‘against’ national interest.

    Additionally, there were some discussions on the proposed mandating of 15 per cent of a week’s total programming to locally sourced content on TV channels and its merits and whether it makes sense for private broadcasters to air or fund a certain quantum of content categorized as public service broadcasting.

    In the absence of any official communication — the meeting was not open to general media reporters though the issues related to media in general — it is also learnt that some cable operators did support the Bill partially, pointing out that the Indian broadcasting industry cannot do without any regulation and legislation.

    Those who attended the meeting included Reliance’s Amit Khanna, Discovery India EVP and MD Deepak Shourie, Sony Entertainment Television India CEO Kunal Dasgupta, Zee Group’s Jawahar Goel, cable industry reps Rakesh Dutta and Roop Sharma, Moving Pictures’ chief Ramesh Sharma, a couple of media corporate lawyers and executives of ESPN Star Sports, Star India and the Times of India Group.