The group has declared its best quarter in six years, recording a profit of Rs 15.2 crore; the company's television business has earned a profit of Rs 9 crore

 

For the first time in its history, NDTV's television business (NDTV Limited) is recording five consecutive profitable quarters, the company said in a statement filed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The NDTV Group has declared its best quarter in six years, recording a profit of Rs 15.2 crore; the company's television business has earned a profit of Rs 9 crore.

At the Group or consolidated level, this is a turnaround of Rs 25.3 crore; for the television business, the improvement is of Rs 8.4 crore over the same time last year.

At the Group level, NDTV is profitable by Rs 19.91 crore before tax and exceptional items, and its share of losses in associate or joint ventures as against a loss of Rs 0.92 crore for the same period last year.

The Lok Sabha has passed the Consumer Protection Bill 2019 that aims at protecting the interests of consumers by establishing authorities for the timely and effective administration and settlement of consumers’ disputes, Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan has said.

Under the Bill, there is a provision for the Central Government to set up a Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) to promote, protect and enforce the rights of consumers and will be empowered to investigate, recall, refund and impose penalties. It will regulate matters related to the violation of consumer rights, unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements.

There is also a provision for class action lawsuit for ensuring that the rights of consumers are not infringed upon. The authority will have the power to impose a penalty on a manufacturer or an endorser of up to Rs 10 lakh and imprisonment for up to two years for a false or misleading advertisement.

Mumbai: Continuing with its mission to make audience measurement more robust in India, BARC India has upped its Vigilance drive with stronger counter-measures to protect the system from Panel Tampering and other unfair practices with respect to manipulation of television viewership.

In March 2017, BARC India had set up an independent Disciplinary Committee (DisComm) to probe complaints of viewership malpractice. Over the course of last 28 months, 18 cases have been referred to the DisComm with evidence of such malpractices.

The highest number of instances have been reported from markets in South India: 6 from Tamil Nadu, 5 from AP/Telangana and 1 from Karnataka. Penal action has been taken against 12 channels in the country. It may be recalled that FIRs were filed in Telangana and arrests have been made in Karnataka and Gwalior.

The DisComm is headed by Justice Mukul Mudgal, former Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court, and has representation of all three industry bodies Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF), Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI). The committee also comprises of D. Shivanandan, former Mumbai Police Commissioner and Maharashtra DGP, and Paritosh Joshi, independent technical expert.

BARC India is also evangelizing initiatives like Sample Return Path Data (SRPD), which will not only make the viewership data more robust but will also help address the issue of panel home tampering. BARC India also has a strict code of conduct for redressing viewership malpractices that is undertaken by all entities subscribing to BARC India’s weekly service.

NDTV Convergence, the digital branch of the company, has recorded its highest-ever revenue in this quarter

In the quarter ended June 30, 2019, NDTV Group recorded a profit of Rs 15.2 crore. The company's television business has earned a profit of Rs 9 crore against Rs 0.6 crore in Q1 last year.

At the group or consolidated level, there is a turnaround of Rs 25.3 crore. For the television business, the improvement is of Rs 8.4 crore over the same time last year.

At the group level, NDTV is profitable by Rs 19.91 crore before tax and exceptional items, and its share of losses in associate or joint ventures as against a loss of Rs. 0.92 crore for the same period last year.

NDTV Convergence, the digital branch of the company, has recorded its highest-ever revenue in this quarter. Its EBITDA of 30 per cent is an improvement over the last years.

Sony Pictures Sports Network (SPSN), the official broadcaster of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, has kickstarted its initiatives for the upcoming prestigious multi-sporting event starting with its on-air campaign, ‘Hum Honge Kamyab’. SPSN marks the one-year countdown to one of the world’s greatest sports event with the telecast of a series of Olympic Channel shows, which includes India-centric content to further familiarize the audiences with Indian athletes and Olympic sport disciplines.

‘Hum Honge Kamyab’ is a call that invokes a strong sense of national pride for our athletes and rallies the nation to unite in a state of support for our athletes for Tokyo 2020. The inspiring campaign also aims to motivate the athletes to put their strongest foot forward for the biggest sporting event in the world and make the nation proud through the journey to win medals. The film showcases aspiring athletes in training, inspired by their real-life heroes and past Olympians.

The track is a stylized version of the anthem, ‘Hum Honge Kamyab’. The sentiments of the nation are echoing - Hindustan dekh raha hai ek hi khwab, Hum Honge Kamyab. With less than 365 days to go for Tokyo 2020, a specially customised programming line-up of Olympic

MUMBAI: Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) has directed multi-system operator (MSO) Meghbela Cable And Broadband Services Pvt Ltd to file an affidavit in the audit dispute with Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd (ZEEL). Earlier, ZEEL was allowed to hold a comprehensive audit of respondent’s head-end, SMS and CAS systems without any delay.TDSAT has noted that the audit is not making progress because historical data for the relevant period, or what the parties understand as baseline data, is not being supplied by the MSO. The tribunal directed the MSO to make adequate arrangements and preparations and extend full cooperation for the required audit.“For that purpose, the MSO has to file an affidavit disclosing the required details before this tribunal within a week. Affidavit should disclose the number of locations and also other relevant particulars,” the latest order read.In an earlier hearing, TDSAT directed that the audit should be held by an independent auditor such as KPMG, Ernst and Young where the representatives of both the parties will be entitled to remain present and auditors shall be at liberty to ask for reports from the vendors of the MSO’s systems including SMS and CAS systems.  It was also said that the cost of the audit shall be borne by ZEEL.TDSAT also directed to post the matter for reviewing the further progress of audit on 9 August. It also mentioned that the latest order shall also bind the vendors of the MSO.

MUMBAI: Last week, India won the men’s and women’s World Cup Kabaddi 2019 beating Iraq and Taiwan respectively. While the men eased past Iraq 57-27, the women scored a convincing 47-29 win at the Mini Stadium Bistari in Melaka, Malaysia. Now, if you’re wondering why the twin triumphs escaped your attention or found no mention on your social media feeds, the reason is quite simple. The matches were not televised by the media rights holder Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) for the Indian audiences.

SPN had acquired the exclusive media rights for World Cup Kabaddi 2019, which was held from 20-28 July. The network had got into an agreement with the Malaysia Kabaddi Federation for rights to televise the tournament on its sports channels across eight countries India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan and Afghanistan. SPN was also to make it available to consumers on its streaming service SonyLIV.

“While we were all set to broadcast the World Cup Kabaddi Melaka 2019 for all our Kabaddi fans in India, we were unable to do so as the organisers did not produce the event for television broadcast due to some issues that they were facing,” SPN said in a statement.

MUMBAI: The general elections is the best time for news channels and the past four-five months have been a big gain for news broadcasters. A few months ago, Network18 group elevated Puneet Singhvi as president- digital and corporate strategy. Network18 Digital also set an all-new benchmark in election results coverage with 56.2 million users on Network18 Digital’s websites on 23 May (the result day of general election 2019), which is more than the 55 million users that Times Internet claims for the same period.

In an interaction with Indiantelevision.com, Singhvi spoke on the strategies to drive growth across the digital platform of Network18. Apart from the regular display advertising on the sites, Singhvi also wants to focus on adding customised solutions for mobile advertising, driving audiences on digital platform and extend some of its brand beyond online. Seeing the growth on various digital vertical Singhvi also revealed that this year the focus would be more on consolidation and obtaining a stable leadership position on the digital front.

MUMBAI: State government-owned multi system operator (MSO) Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation (TACTV) is expecting its revenue for the financial year 2018-19 to be Rs 268.89 crore.

During the FY2017-18, TACTV had earned revenue of Rs. 221.90 crore with a net loss of Rs. 35.63 crore. The net loss was due to the purchase of set top boxes (STBs) and depreciation on the value of STBs.

Due to digitalisation of Cable TV and distribution of STBs, TACTV had purchased 36.40 Lakh STBs for Rs.612.21 crore on supplier line of credit model.

In its policy note for FY19-20, Tamil Nadu’s Information Technology (IT) department has stated that TACTV is facing paucity of funds to meet the repayment schedule and also expenditure relating to broadcasting due to the heavy investment on procurement of STBs.

So far, 34.51 lakh STBs have been distributed to the consumers through 16,907 local cable operators (LCOs). Further, HD STBs have been distributed to 18,253 subscribers through 2154 LCOs. The HD cable TV services are now available in 12 locations in the State.

The policy note further stated that TACTV has repaid Rs. 186 crore to the vendor as on 31st March 2019 from the revenue generation.

Since there is an accumulated cash flow deficit on account of purchase of STBs, TACTV has proposed to get a loan of Rs. 100 crore during the FY20 with a government guarantee.

TACTV had floated a global tender on 6th May 2017 for procurement of 60 lakh Standard Definition STBs and 10 Lakh High Definition STBs. Two successful Bidders were selected and Letter of Acceptance (LoA) issued for procurement of 60 Lakh SD STBs and 10 Lakh HD STBs.

The collaboration will help both the OTT platforms in gathering consumer insights, stronger marketing and hence improvement in monetisation

 

With an aim to leverage each other’s strengths in the OTT domain, Zee5 and ALTBalaji have collaborated to co-create original content which will only be available on both platforms.

The content-sharing arrangement includes co-creation of 60+ original content series (in Hindi) which will be available exclusively to SVOD subscribers of both platforms. This association is a collaborative process of co-understanding consumer insights and co-marketing to serve the viewer better and resulting in improved monetisation for both. Zee5 and ALTBalaji’s collaboration will help expand their subscription base.

As per the association, ALTBalaji will maintain an exclusive partnership with Zee5, in order to enhance its offering to the market, with a focused and strategic approach.