ITV

Tag: profit

  • Contract Bengaluru gets a new ECD in Manoj Jacob

    Contract Bengaluru gets a new ECD in Manoj Jacob

    MUMBAI: Contract Advertising has got a new executive creative director (ECD) for its Bengaluru office. It has hired Manoj Jacob, who has worked with the company earlier as well and joins back after a gap of six years. Jacob will be reporting to Contract Advertising NCD Ashish Chakravarty and would also work in partnership with Monojit Ray who recently joined Contract as the Bengaluru head.

    Prior to joining Contract, Manoj ran his own creative consultancy firm, where he worked with clients such as Nova Specialty Surgery, Apollo Hospitals, Simply South Restaurant and Abs Fitness among others.

    “I am very happy to have Manoj on board as the ECD of our Bangalore office. He is extremely passionate about his craft, very driven, and a hands-on kind of leader. Having worked with him in the past, I won’t be surprised if he dives straight into the deep end from day 1 itself.  It is a challenging role, but I am positive he will shine,” said Chakravarty.

    Manoj comes with an experience of 17 years and has worked with O&M, McCann Erickson, Satchi & Satchi, Euro RSCG, orchard, Publicis Ambience and Bates over the course of his career. He has also handled some of leading brands across verticals such as IBM, Air Deccan, Cavin Kare, Mitsubishi Motors, Wipro Consumer Care and Weekender.

    On his coming back to Contract, Manoj said, “It’s an awesome new team, across disciplines, that is getting together at Contract Advertising and I’m very happy to be a part of it.”

    Manoj’s work has won him a lot acclaim and rewards both nationally and internationally from Cannes to New York festival to winning at AD Spot Non Profit Awards, Italy and the Bangalore Ad Club awards.

  • Netflix crosses 40 million subscribers base in Q3

    Netflix crosses 40 million subscribers base in Q3

    MUMBAI: Netflix has announced its third-quarter results. The OTT platform that has added 1.3 million US subscribers-11 per cent higher than the prior year Q3, now has a total US base of 31.09 million subscribers.

    Internationally, net additions were significantly up from the prior year at 1.4 million new members, driven by the company’s expansion to the Nordics and the Netherlands. In addition, there was a surge in low-quality free trials in September in Latin America that temporarily boosted the total member number.

    Together Netflix’ total global base is just over 40 million, a 25 per cent increase year-over-year.

    Netflix expects Q4 net additions to be approximately equal to Q4 of the prior year.

    Revenue-wise the streamer continues to show thinnish margins thanks to the amount that it spends on content acquisition, bringing in $32 million of profit on $1.106 billion revenue. In Q4 it expects to expand its contribution margin about 400 basis points year-over-year to about 23 per cent.

    “That means that sequentially our target contribution margin is slightly down Q3 to Q4,” the company said in its earnings statement. “As a reminder, we shifted our contribution margin target a few months ago from ‘100 basis points of quarterly sequential improvement’ to ‘400 basis points Q over prior year Q’, so we are right on target with our articulated margin growth strategy. Our $7.99 price is working very well for us for both membership growth and contribution margin growth.”

    When it comes to its content strategy, the original series get most of the headlines, but the company said that a bigger percentage of overall Netflix viewing is generated by its exclusive complete season-after series. During the quarter, it launched new seasons of The New Girl, The Walking Dead, Scandal, Breaking Bad, Revolution and Pretty Little Liars.

    However, original content remains a top priority, it said. “Over the next few years we aspire to support creation of some of the most compelling and remarkable content ever produced. Coupled with the flexibility of our internet viewing and power of our personal recommendations we will keep changing television for the better.”

    Orange is the New Black has been a tremendous success for the company and will end the year as its most watched original series ever and, “as with each of our other previously launched originals, enjoys an audience comparable with successful shows on cable and broadcast TV. We have seen sustained social media buzz in the months after its debut and it is also one of the most critically well received TV shows of 2013,” it added.

    In addition to Orange is the New Black, during Q3 Netflix launched the new Ricky Gervais series Derek and broadened its original content offering with the acquisition of stand-up comedy specials from Russell Peters and Aziz Ansari, premiering exclusively on Netflix in October and November, respectively. It also rolled out a second set of episodes of Mako Mermaids, our original series directed at the teen audience, and will soon expand into original documentaries, a category that does well on the Netflix service.

    “This quarter we will premiere our inaugural second season of a Netflix original series with the return of Lilyhammer starring Steven Van Zandt,” the company said. “We will also be launching our first animated original series with Dreamworks Animation, Turbo F.A.S.T.”

  • News broadcasters on recovery path in FY’10

    Reeling under recession and intense competition in the genre, news broadcasters looked at 2009 as a year when they had to correct their business models. The chief executive officers of these companies came out with harsh prescriptions: cut jobs, reduce news gathering costs and exit from non-core businesses.

    The measures, some of which were really painful, are beginning to improve the health of their balance sheets. These companies are still not out of the woods but they are surely on recovery path. While revenues grew slowly during the fiscal ended March 2010, operational efficiencies have improved and net losses have narrowed.

    Revenue rebounds but growth path still slow

    The combined turnover of seven listed news broadcasters stood at Rs 16.53 billion in FY’10, up 7.01 per cent over the earlier year, as the advertising market eased and the recovery became stronger in the last two quarters.

    IBN18 (CNN-IBN and IBN7) and TV Today (Aaj Tak, Headlines Today Tez and Delhi Aaj Tak) grew their topline by 16 per cent and 12 per cent respectively while NDTV saw a modest 5 per cent increase in its income.

    BAG Films and Media, which runs News24 and E24, and IBN Lokmat showed a revenue growth of over 121 and 258 per cent respectively, albeit on a lower base.

    TV18, however, should be worried. The company, which runs business news channels CNBC-TV18 and CNBC Awaaz, saw its revenue dip marginally by 2.35 per cent as competition in the genre put pressure on ad rates.

    Revenue (in Rs million)

    Companies tighten costs

    Companies continued to focus on cost-cutting drives, the main corrective step taken after being on an expansion overdrive. Expenses dropped to Rs 14.48 billion, from Rs 16.41 billion in FY09, falling by 11.81 per cent between the fiscals.

    BAG Films, a new entrant that was going through an investment phase in FY’09, really clamped down on costs and brought it down by almost 66 per cent.

    Expenses (in Rs million) 

    Other players who were on an austerity drive were TV18, which cut costs by 27 per cent, and NDTV (22 per cent). Only Zee News Ltd’s expenses saw a miniscule 0.01 per cent increase.

    At the operational level, the news broadcasters had a remarkable turnaround story between the two fiscals as operating profit rose 378.33 per cent in FY’10 over the year-ago period. The FY’10 operating profit stood at Rs 2.59 billion as compared to operating loss of Rs 930.82 million.

    The companies who had the highest operational efficiency in the fiscal are Zee News Ltd (Rs 812.1 million), TV18 (Rs 648.1 million) and TV Today (Rs 415.89 million).

    Operationg Profit (in Rs million)

    News broadcasters stare at losses

    Despite a drastic improvement in operational efficiencies, news broadcasters still stare at losses. The loss leaders during the fiscal were IBN18 (Rs 820.99 million), TV18 (Rs 597.3 million), IBN Lokmat (Rs 210.88 million) and NDTV (Rs 205.2 million).

    Zee News Ltd and TV Today, however, stayed profitable.

    In FY’11, most news broadcasters expect to be in the black amid restructuring, cost-cuts and operational efficiencies.