Television Eighteen India Ltd has posted a consolidated net loss of Rs40.6 crore, more than four times from the net loss of Rs9 crore during the corresponding quarter last fiscal on higher expenditure. Revenues in the flagship news operations fell 24% to Rs56.8 crore. Total expenditure grew 41% to Rs103.5 crore.
During a conference call today, managing director Raghav Bahl said advertising slump has still not bounced back even though it has been showing signs of recovery in the past few weeks. “By October this year, we are hoping advertising to recover significantly,” he said. Elections and budget coming back to back has contributed to higher costs in the news operations, he said.
Revenues from Web18 grew 8% to Rs14.2 crore. The division posted a net loss of Rs8.5 crore, up 6.25% from the year ago period. Responding to a question on why revenues haven’t grown more despite the company claiming In.com to be India’s second largest portal, group CEO Haresh Chawla said In.com was posting higher revenues but that has been offset by a “dramatic decline” in the revenues of Moneycontrol.com, the group’s financial portal. Chawla attributed this to Moneycontrol’s high dependence of the financial sector for advertising. Advertising from the financial sector has slowed to a standstill, he said.
Talking about the Capex requirements of the company, Bahl said the company did not forsee any new capex needs apart from continued funding of projects it has already undertaken. “The only new forseeable requirement is the print project when and if we decide to get into that segment.” Bahl said that even if the group decided to get into the print space, that would not be done this year.
“Our focus right now is only to turn all group companies into cash positive operations,” he added.
Fielding several questions about the launch of ET Now and if the company anticipated viewer attrition, Bahl said his channels faced competition in all genres and expects the new entrant to expand the market rather than eat into the marketshare of existing players.
IBN18 MD Sameer Manchanda gave an analogy: “The general news genre grew from a Rs120 crore market to a Rs450 crore market in three years.

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