MUMBAI: The good news for DTH major Dish TV India is that it maintained its EBITDA margin at 32.9 per cent in Q3FY25. This despite, the drop in the topline, in EBITDA, subscription revenues, number of subscribers, and an increase in losses.
The other piece of good news is that the company is optimistic of things turning around the coming quarter thanks to finance minister lifting the taxable income levels for the general Indian public. .
Dish TV India CEO & executive director Manoj Dobhal said that Dish TV is venturing into B2B e-commerce through its newly incorporated subsidiary, Dish Bharat Ventures Pvt Ltd, established in October 2024.
“As an organisation, Dish TV India has come a long way and has, in this eventful journey, positively touched the lives of millions of stakeholders be it our ever valued past or present subscribers, shareholders, trade partners, suppliers or employees. We are indebted to all of them and would like to assure all our stakeholders that we would continue to do our best to make the business scale new heights all over again,” he said.” The company remains committed to a turnaround and believes that the convergence of digital content with linear television will help television maintain its mass appeal as it continues to provide value-for-money offerings to its subscribers."
Preparing a content pipeline that adds a flavor of uniqueness and differentiates the OTT aggregation app of Dish TV India from similar products, the company conceived and launched the ‘Watcho Storytellers Conclave’ in Kolkata during the quarter. The trademark event aimed to foster creativity and innovation in content creation within the regional entertainment space while providing a platform for emerging storytellers to showcase their talent. More than three hundred established as well as budding content related professionals participated in the daylong event sharing their vision about the changing content ecosystem. More such ‘Watcho Storytellers Conclave’ are in the pipeline in the coming quarters and should give Dish TV India access to a unique and creative talent pool of content.
Doubling down on its content innovation strategy and to expand monetization opportunities, Dish TV India during the third quarter of the current fiscal partnered with C21 Media to launch Content India 2025. The collaboration is aimed at positioning India as a global leader in content creation.
The upcoming Content India 2025 would bring together industry leaders to discuss trends, challenges and opportunities in the media landscape helping support the growth of Indian content and its distribution across international platforms.
To combat pressure from online streaming platforms, Dish TV has also enhanced its offering by bundling complimentary access to six over-the-top (OTT) apps with DTH subscriptions. The company's OTT aggregation app 'Watcho' has crossed 7.6 million paid subscriptions, with its premium plan 'Watcho Max' now featuring 18 popular OTT apps.
On the financial front, Dish reported a net loss of Rs 465 million for the quarter ended 31 December 2024, compared to a loss of Rs 28 million in the corresponding quarter last fiscal. The direct-to-home operator's operating revenues declined by 20.7 per cent year-on-year to Rs 3,730 million.
Subscription revenues saw a sharp decline of 33.5 per cent to Rs 2,472 million, while EBITDA fell by 31.9 per cent to Rs 1,227 million compared to the same quarter last year.
The company attributed the continued revenue pressure to increasing online content consumption and weak consumer discretionary spending, with cost-conscious viewers shifting towards the free DTH platform.
