ITV

Tag: Maran

  • Sun TV gets ‘buy’ rating from ICICI & Edelweiss

    MUMBAI: Leading brokerages in India have recommended a ‘buy’ rating for Sun TV, the television channel consistently leading across genres for weeks as per BARC India ratings.

    ICICI Direct has recommended ‘buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 830 in its research report dated 14 August, and Edelweiss too has maintained a ‘buy’ rating with Rs 1,024 target price.

    Revenues came in Rs 7863 million (up 3.4 per cent YoY) versus ICICI’s estimate of Rs 7634 million supported by higher subscription revenues, which grew 15.3 per cent YoY to Rs 2705 million (better than ICICI’s estimate of eight per cent YoY growth).

    Sun TV, ICICI says, continued to disappoint on the advertisement revenue front. Ad revenues declined approximately four per cent YoY to Rs 3260 million EBITDA came in at Rs 4484 million, up 2.7 per cent YoY, better than its estimate of Rs 4206 million supported by lower IPL losses (loss of Rs 220 million versus expected loss of Rs 550 million). Though market share erosion in Sun TV is a concern owing to intense competition from Star Vijay, Edelweiss believed it is temporary as viewership is intact. However, competition from Colors is a key monitorable.

    The near-term competitive pressures, ICICI notes, have led to concerns over the expected full throttle ad recovery. However, it has highlighted that the overall levers such as low base, the upcoming festive season and monetisation of improved rating in non-Tamil markets, would provide healthy visibility of ad growth revival ahead. A faster resolution of Chennai digitisation could also provide strong subscription revenue growth. ICICI rates well Sun TV’s strategy of revamping its content strategy and focussing on superior ad yield.

    Edelweiss notes Sun TV’s main positives of approx 29.7 per cent y-o-y growth in cable subscription supported by catch-up revenue and 9.4 per cent y-o-y jump in DTH subscription and IPL losses were stable at Rs 241 million in FY17, even though it lost the series in FY18. The main negatives, Edelweiss notes, was the 4.1 per cent y-o-y dip in ads base of 3.7 per cent y-o-y decline owning to GST.

    The company guided for 15 per cent y-o-y growth in subscriptions in FY18, led by south markets, ex-Tamil Nadu. With phase-III digitisation on track, Edelweiss estimated 15 per cent / 12.0 per cent y-o-y growth in subscriptions in FY18/FY19.

    Factoring in lower ad growth in Q1FY18, Edelweiss cut FY18E ad growth to 9.0 per cent y-o-y from 11.0 per cent earlier.

    Hit by GST, Sun’s ad revenue fell 4.1 per cent y-o-y. However, Edelweiss expects it to bounce back riding on strong content in H2FY18 following improvement in Telugu and Malayalam ratings.

    Sun’s overall subscription grew 16.1 per cent y-o-y supported by catch-up revenue and upswing in digital revenues. The content cost rose 37.6 per cent y-o-y as Sun TV shifted to commissioned model from the ad slot model. It moved entirely into the commissioned model in all its markets, except Tamil Nadu, 2 out of 18 programmes are on commissioned model.

    Sun TV now expects August and September to report better ad growth as GST impact withers away.

  • 9 million broadband connections by year-end

    9 million broadband connections by year-end

    NEW DELHI: The government has set a target of providing nine million broadband connections by this year end and 20 million connections by the end of 2010.

    Addressing the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his ministry, Communications and Information Technology Minister Dayanidhi Maran stated that more than a million broadband connections would be added per month before the end of 2007 thanks to the availability of new disruptive wireless broadband technologies such as Wi-MAX.

    He stressed the need for wire line and wireless broadband to co-exist and expand together and said new applications such as tele-aid medicines, IPTV, video conferencing, e-governance, e-commerce etc. will be available to citizens with broadband availability. Members complained about the poor mobile connectivity in the rural/remote areas and stressed the need for improving the complaint redressal mechanism in the backward and rural areas.

    There will be special emphasis for the North-Eastern States and Jammu & Kashmir, Maran added. He informed the members that the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) had declared Year 2007 as “Year of North East and Jammu Kashmir” with the objective of improving teleconnectivity in these states. Dr. Shakeel Ahmad, Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology was also present.

     
    Through a presentation on the initiatives on Broadband, members were shown the targets to be achieved under the broadband initiatives, broad strategy and action plans prepared by the BSNL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL).

    It is envisaged under the action plan that broadband coverage of all secondary and higher secondary schools, public health care centers and Village Panchayats would be provided by the year 2008. Broadband connectivity would be provided to 100,000 Community Service Centers (CSC) covering 20000 CSCs by ADSL by September 2007; 1000 blocks by wireless broadband by December 2007 and the remaining 5000 blocks by wireless broadband with USO support by June 2008. BSNL, as part of their action plan, have envisaged adding an average of 500,000 broadband connections per month from January 2008.

    Eighty per cent of the exchanges would be broadband by the end of 2007 and roll out of IPTV will begin in major cities. In addition to this, BSNL will aggressively roll out high speed broadband (like Wi-MAX) services and allow integration of multiple access technology like ADSL 2 +, VDSL 2, fibre-home, Wi-Fi, Wi-MAX, 3G, CorDECT etc. The focus will be to provide multi-play instead of triple play.

     
    As a part of the strategy, MTNL has envisaged a target of providing one million broadband connections by the end of this year and addition of an average 100,000 connections per month from January 2008. It has also decided to strengthen its IPTV services which have been recently rolled out fully in Mumbai and in limited areas of Delhi.

    Maran informed the members about the recent amendment to the Indian Telegraph Act to provide support from USO fund for mobile and broadband services in remote/rural areas. He said restrictions of providing mobile services within 10 km. of international borders had been relaxed to 500 metres except along the Line of Control and Line of Actual Control in the areas of Akhnoor and Pathankot of J and K. Maran hoped that mobile connectivity to the rural area and border areas will improve significantly with these decisions.