Television Eighteen India Ltd has posted a net profit of Rs 12.54 million for the quarter ended 31 March 2002 as compared to Rs 13.33 million in the corresponding period last fiscal. Total Income has decreased from Rs 98.73 million in MQ-01 to Rs 81.54 million in the quarter ended 31 March, 2002.

The company has posted a net profit of Rs 34.89 million for the year ended 31 March, 2002 as compared to Rs 31.77 million in the previous financial year. Total Income has increased from Rs 213.17 million in FY-01 to Rs 322.03 million in the financial year ended 31 March, 2002.

Net profit is at Rs 4 million for the quarter ended 31 March, 2002 and the total income is at Rs 91.11 million for the quarter ended 31 March, 2002.

While TV18‘s news revenues have improved 14.4 per cent during the quarter to Rs 75.8 million, its entertainment and web revenues are down by significant margins. Entertain revenues were down 41.8 per cent at Rs Rs 4.3 million and the E-18 revenues were down 35.6 per cent at Rs 2.3 million. E-18, which owns moneycontrol.com, is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV18.

Subhash Chandra‘s Zee Telefilms today announced a revenue growth of 10 per cent, EBITDA growth of 30 per cent and profit after tax growth of 16 per cent for the year ending March 2002.

Zee has reported consolidated net profit of Rs 599.1 million for the fourth quarter ended 31 March, 2002 compared to Rs 307.8 million in the corresponding quarter a year ago. Total income during the January-March quarter rose to Rs 3.24 billion from Rs 3.19 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

On a standalone basis, the company‘s net profit during the three months to 31 March 2002 was Rs 211.30 million compared to Rs 472.90 million in the corresponding quarter last year. Total income during the reporting quarter was Rs 1.26 billion as against Rs 1.36 billion in the corresponding quarter a year earlier.

For the fiscal year ended 31 March, 2002, the company has posted a net profit of Rs 1.04 billion compared to Rs 1.38 billion in the fiscal year ended 31 March, 2001. Total income for the fiscal year 2001/02 was Rs 4.70 billion as against Rs 4.35 billion in 2001.

Zee declared consolidated revenues of Rs 11.409 billion, 10 per cent over FY2001. The increase in revenues it ascribed largely to subscription revenues, which recorded a sharp jump of 65 per cent to Rs 3.369 billion.

AD REVENUES: On the ad revenue front, Zee declared a decline of 7 per cent to Rs 6.402 billion. It‘s still far better than what one may have assumed would be the case considering that Zee‘s ad revenues are still facing a hard time as its programming, some of which has been appreciated as being of high quality has still to make a major mark on the ratings charts. Referring to its efforts to refurbish the content side of its operations, Zee said that during the quarter, the overall programming cost of the network went up due to write-offs on old inventory.

PAY REVENUES: Zee went pay last year. Zee TV and Zee News, two of the leading channels of the networkwent pay in June 2001. The Joint venture with Turner also became operational during the quarter. As a result, the domestic pay revenues of the network increased to Rs 359 million during the quarter.

The investments in regional pay channels under brand "Alpha" is an important strategic building block for the network, since regional language channels will be a significant growth area in the future, targeting a new, yet complimentary market segment that is currently not being addressed by other major broadcasters, the company says.

National broadcaster Doordarshan expects to officially launch digital terrestrial transmission (DTT) in the four metros of Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai by June.
According to Girish Chandra Rai, superintending engineer, Mumbai Doordarshan Kendra, currently transmission on DTT mode in New Delhi on an experimental has been on since the first week of April. Rai said the official launch of DTT services would only be made when all the four metros were deemed to be ready to start operations and not before.

Rai said the work of putting up transmitters had been completed in all four metros. Now all that was needed was to get the systems electronically integrated. Rai said the transmitters had been sourced from Japan while the encoders were purchased from the UK.

The project, which initially will cover just the four metros, is expected to cost Rs 300 million. Bangalore and Pune are next on the launch map, in addition to other cities, which are in the process of being identified. Rai said that DTT service would be launched with five channels DD1, DD2, DD Sports, DD Bharati and one regional DD channel (eg. in Mumbai it would be DD Sahyadri).

Rai said that DD was hoping that with private participation this number would go up finally to 15 to 20 channels.

Queried as to the cost of DTT set top box (or converter), Rai said what was available in the market currently varied between Rs 3,500 and Rs 5,000. When the poser was put to him as to why DD was looking at DTT at all considering the costs Rai said: "The world over they are talking of a total shutdown of analog by 2012." In India, it might take a while longer than that but it would happen, Rai said.