KOLKATA: Dish TV India (Dish TV) has posted consolidated subscription revenues of Rs 744.9 crore and operating revenues of Rs 815.7 crore for the third quarter. The direct-to-home (DTH) operator has reported net profit of Rs 86.4 crore for the quarter.

While the net profit has gone up compared to net loss of Rs 66.8 crore in Q3 FY20, the subscription revenue and operating revenues have dropped by 6.7 per cent and six per cent respectively year-on-year basis. EBITDA for the quarter stood at Rs 50.39 crore. EBITDA margin was at 61.8 per cent, up 350 bps year-on-year.

“The effect of the pandemic is carrying on. While some uptick was expected during the festival period, it was offset by a muted consumer sentiment. Our focus on the cost front and on driving operational efficiencies however continued unabated thus leading to higher operating margins and a better net profitability,” Dish TV India group CEO Anil Dua commented.

The company said in a regulatory filing that expectations that consumer sentiment too would catch some tailwind, with the cricketing season starting at the end of the second quarter, and that it would remain elevated through the traditionally strong third quarter, didn’t see much light as the consuming class remained conservative despite some easing of Covid2019 restrictions. Spending related cautiousness amongst subscribers, coupled with moderate new subscriber additions by the company led to a spike in the subscriber churn rate.

Festivals were without the usual consumer exuberance and low levels of spending in November and December was in a sharp contrast to the spending around Diwali.

“We continued to re-configure our range of offerings to make them fit the contours of a changing ecosystem as well as the evolving needs of the traditional television users. Watcho, our home grown OTT platform, and our recently launched Android set-top-boxes are well positioned to meet that requirement. Watcho is now close to the 14 million members mark and is poised to grow at a fair pace,” Dua added.