MUMBAI: Punit Goenka, chief executive of Zee Entertainment, has weathered a storm of challenges during his five-year tenure at the helm of the once-dominant Indian media powerhouse. From offloading stakes to resolve debt issues and battling with major shareholder Invesco, to the spectacular collapse of the Sony merger and facing scrutiny from market regulator SEBI, Goenka's career has resembled something of a corporate soap opera – perhaps befitting for a man who runs a television empire.
Despite seeing the company's value plummet from Rs 40,000 crore to less than Rs 10,000 crore and losing his board position, the embattled executive remains undeterred in his mission to revive the struggling media giant, in an interview he gave to the BusinessLine newspaper.
"I have always treated myself as a professional promoter," said Goenka, explaining his continued dedication despite now holding less than four per cent stake in the company. "I could have just sat at home and enjoyed my dividends," he quipped, though one imagines those dividends are considerably smaller these days.
Reflecting on past decisions, Goenka acknowledged he might have approached Zee's digital transformation differently. "I would have probably invested in Zee5 in a more staggered manner," he admitted, suggesting his "entrepreneurial mindset" may have led to over-investment in anticipation of the ill-fated Sony merger.
Despite industry challenges, Goenka reports having increased EBITDA margins from 10 per cent to 16 per cent over the past year – "60 per cent growth in profitability is not a small task," he noted, with the subtle pride of a man who would very much like to keep his job.
“The industry is bound to grow at 10 per cent CAGR. It may happen in six months or it may take a year or so more. But it is bound to happen. And this market is going to be television AND digital. It will not be an OR market,” he said.
When questioned about competing with deep-pocketed rivals like Netflix and Jio, Goenka maintained that Zee's strategy focuses on ideas rather than extravagant budgets. "Fortunately for me, I don't need deep pockets," he claimed, in what might be the understatement of the year given the company's current market position.
As for his future strategy, Goenka aims to position Zee as a "content and tech company" while targeting a return to 20 per cent profit margins. “Even today, at 16 per cent, I can confidently say that we are amongst the best in class on margins, compared to anyone else in the industry. FY25 was a year to get our cost optimisation in place. Before that, we were scaling the company for a merger. In that situation, a lot of our costs got inflated. Plus, we had one-time costs of the merger itself. So in FY25, we spent the first six to eight months trying to prune all the costs and bring it back to the original Zee way of working, which we have successfully done, and now our focus is purely on growth.”
Whether he can successfully navigate the company back to its former prominence remains to be seen, but one thing is certain – in the entertainment business, everyone loves a comeback story.
