UTV hopes to double revenues from content business

Starts 3rd October

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UTV hopes to double revenues from content business

UTV

MUMBAI: UTV expects to garner Rs 1.2 billion from its TV content production business in the current fiscal.

"Movies will fetch us around Rs 75-80 crore (Rs 750-800 million). Our projection from Hungama TV is between Rs 25-40 crore," said UTV chief executive officer Ronnie Screwvala at a media briefing announcing the launch of the company's kids channel hungama TV.

"Our focus will be in three areas - TV content production, movies and broadcasting. We expect to grow vertically in each of these segments," Screwvala added.

Revenue from TV content business was Rs 650 million in 2003-04 while movies accounted for over Rs 220 million. "We will have earnings reflected from four movies this year. The surge will also come from our movie distribution business," said Screwvala.

Commenting on the much-delayed initial public offering (IPO), Screwvala said that it would happen after Hungama TV had settled down. "It is better to have a pie in both the content as well as broadcasting business. There is no immediate fund requirement as we sold our entire stake in Vijay TV to Star. We plan to have our IPO within 2-3 months," he said.