MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) expects to cut down its sports business losses to Rs 700-900 million from Rs 1.48 billion but could fall short of its earlier target of breaking even operationally in the next fiscal.

The depreciation of the rupee has hurt the sports broadcasting business as the content deals are contracted in dollars. Zeel‘s sports business in FY‘12 had been hit by forex losses to the tune of Rs 270-Rs 280 million, even as its revenue for the fiscal stood at Rs 3.93 billion.

Zeel has renewed the South Africa and Zimbabwe cricket telecast rights and three other boards - Sri Lanka, Pakistan and West India are coming up for renewal.

Zeel continues to stick to its early ad guidance growth of 7-9 per cent in FY‘13 for the industry but expects its own performance to be higher than that. In the first quarter of this fiscal, the company‘s ad revenue jumped 18 per cent to Rs 4.47 billion. The ad growth in Q2 could be slightly lower.

Zeel will continue to invest in new content and add more hours of programming. The company has added original content in the second quarter, a major chunk of which is in the weekend programmes. The aim is to up fresh content to 33 hours a week by the end of this fiscal.

Zeel‘s international subscription income should stay flat or have marginal growth while domestic subscription is expected to grow by 14-15 per cent this fiscal.

There has been no significant carriage fee fall but that should see some correction once cable TV digitisation gets implemented.