NEW DELHI: The board of directors of the Subhash Chandra-promoted Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL), at its meeting held today, has approved the proposal to commence broadcasting of Zee TV and Zee Cinema channels from India. The company has already obtained permission of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for the same.
The board also approved the de-listing of the company’s shares from Ahmedabad and Delhi Stock Exchange.
“Shifting of broadcast of these channels would help garner advertising revenue from non-exporting advertisers, cost saving on account of foreign exchange remittances and help bring about operational efficiency in the wake of introduction of conditional access system (CAS) and direct-to-home (DTH) technologies for distribution,” an official statement, quoting Rajiv Garg, CEO, corporate strategy and finance, Essel Group, said here today.
ZTL’s total revenues and profitability is expected to show a substantial increase on standalone basis. The major upside would, off course, remain the incremental advertisement revenue on account of company’s ability to sell airtime to non-exporting entities also.
The company has finalized arrangements with Essel Shyam Communication Limited, with its facilities on the outskirts of Delhi at NOIDA, to playout and uplink these channels. These channels would continue to be broadcast using the same transponder on Asiasat 3 satellite.
According to Garg, “With this re-organisation, the company would offer leading Hindi Zee channels to non-exporting Indian businesses for the first time in Indian broadcasting history presenting them with an excellent option to maximize their marketing strategy.”
55% DIVIDEND APPROVED
In its Annual General Meeting held immediately after the board meeting, payment of dividend at the rate of 55 per cent was approved for the year 2002-03.
The general body also approved the annual accounts and the re-appointment of N C Jain and B K Syngal to the board of directors and also the appointment of S P Talwar as an independent director. Talwar has had a distinguished career and retired as a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
The board also approved the de-listing of the company’s shares from Ahmedabad and Delhi Stock Exchange.
Salient features of the audited results of the company are as follows: the company has reported a consolidated turnover growth of 12.2 per cent to Rs. 12,079 million and a growth in operating profit of 23.5 per cent; net profit for the year, excluding exceptional items, recorded a 33.5 per cent growth to Rs. 2,599 million; overall subscription revenues turned in an excellent performance globally with 54.5 per cent growth to Rs. 4,849 million; domestic pay revenues continued to build on the momentum gathered last year, with a strong increase of 81.4 per cent over last year. During the year, subscription revenues contributed 40 per cent to the total revenues, up from 29 per cent last year.
International businesses continued to grow leading to 41.9 per cent growth in international revenues. During the financial year 2003, 25.2 per cent of revenues came from markets other than India. Cash flows helped reduce term borrowings by Rs. 810 million and the process has continued during FY 2004, resulting in further reduction of debt. Focused cost control has enabled to improve operating margins substantially from 28.3 per cent in FY2002 to 31.1 per cent in FY2003.
Tag: Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL)
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Zee to delist from Ahmedabad, Delhi exchanges
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ETC promoters get prominent positions in ETC-Zee Telefilms restructure; Chandra ETC chairman; Goyal managing director
MUMBAI: Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL) has been on a gobbling spree over the past year, having acquired stakes in ETC Networks Ltd (ETC) and Padmalaya Telefilms Ltd (PTL). Now it is digesting those acquisitions.
Today, the board of directors of ETC was reconstituted with Subhash Chandra taking over as chairman of the company, Sandeep Goyal, Group Broadcasting CEO of ZTL getting additional charge as managing director. The promoters Jagjit Singh Kohli, Yogesh Shah and Yogesh Radhakrishnan have resigned from the board.
The three of them have been given on additional responsibilities within ZTL and ETC. Kohli continues to look after the day-to-day operations of ETC as Executive Director while Radhakrishnan in his enlarged role will look after Zee Cinema, Zee Music and etc as business head. Shah has been inducted as director, inhouse production for the entire Zee Network including house production at ETC and PTL.
This apart oodles of glamour has been added to the ETC board with Hema Malini getting hopping on as an independent director.
ZTL nominees Rajiv Garg and Vikas Gupta have also been appointed as additional directors on ETC.
“With the reconstitution of the ETC Board and the new management responsibility of the original promoters of ETC, the integration of ETC with ZTL has now been completed and we look forward to the ETC brand and company achieving greater success in the days to come,” says ZTL vice-president corporate finance & strategy Atul Das.
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Alpha Gujarati way ahead in its language segment: INTAM data
Zee’s year-old niche Gujarati regional language channel Alpha Gujarati is giving Doorsharshan’s DD11 and Reminiscent Television India’s Gurjari a serious run for their money leaving them far behind in the viewership ratings race, a company release states.
According to ORG-MARG’s INTAM reports commissioned by Zee Network and taking Ahmedabad city as a base measure, Alpha Gujarati has captured a whopping 60 per cent of the viewership pie.
The data is for all cable and satellite homes for the period between 4 March 2001 and 1 April 2001. Alpha Gujarati’s 60 per cent relative viewership is more than twice that of DD11 which stands at 28 per cent, followed by Gurjari’s 12 per cent.
As for the prime time 7:30 pm to 11 pm slot, Alpha Gujarati has a relative channel share of 62 per cent followed by DD 11 with 21 per cent and Gurjari with 15 per cent, the release states.
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Zee Telefilms claws its way back on the bourses
Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL), while still struggling to attract viewers, is in the middle of a determined fightback worthy of some appreciation. At least that’s how the stockmarkets are perceiving it. The ZTL share has been clawing its way back – it rose by more than 10 per cent last week.
And in today’s trading it registered an increase of around Rs 7 when it closed at Rs 142.40 after surging to an intra-day high of Rs 144.25. Its low during day trades was Rs 133.00 with the share chalking up a volume of 3.8 million shares.
So what’s perking up ZTL? Two pieces of news. One that its viewership ratings are looking up, even as Star TV and Sony Entertainment have been grappling hard to retain their grips on audiences. According to Intam data for all cable and satellite homes for the month 26 February-25 March 2001, three of its shows Koshish, Amanat and Mehandi Tere Naam Ki have consistently been figuring in the Top 10 shows chart with television rating points of between 4.5 and 5.5.
The gains have mainly come at the expense of Sony Entertainment Television which has seen a rapid erosion of ratings for its Jeeto Chappar Phaad Ke game show. Even Star Plus’ Kaun Banega Crorepati has gradually been losing its grip while other family dramas such as Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki have been holding on to theirs.
The second piece of news that the market is looking favourably at is the fact that the Zee Network is finally getting its digital direct to operator bouquet together with its leading channel Zee TV expected to encrypt and go pay by next month. Cable TV operator pricing for the Zee bouquet – including Zee Cinema, Zee English, Zee MGM, Zee News, and Alpha Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali and Punjabi – has been fixed at around Rs 25. The pay TV model is expected to add substantial subscription revenues to ZTL’s books and profits to its bottomline.
The key question is: is the market once again getting carried away and, once again, much too early?
One will have to wait and watch the ratings sheets in the coming weeks to see if the upward audience grabbing movement of Zee TV’s shows is maintained. On the pay TV front, subscription revenue collections from cable TV operators for its bouquet are not going to be easy. Even if one considers that its Siticable network has a captive five million subscriber base. One can expect payments from only one-third of cable TV operators taking a feed from Siticable headends as has been the record so far in the cable TV trade.