Television content production companies have had a bumpy ride during the 12-month period ended March 2010 as broadcasters cut costs and restructured businesses to tide over the recession.The listed TV content companies - Balaji Telefilms, UTV Television, BAG Films and Media, Creative Eye and Sri Adhikari Bros – posted a combined revenue of Rs 3.36 billion, down 38.32 per cent from Rs 5.44 billion in the year ago period. Barring Sri Adhikari Bros, which has low revenues, each company’s turnover de-grew during the fiscal.

Realisation per hour of programming fell dramatically and the content creators had to work on squeezed margins. The existence of too many content companies did not make the task any easier.

The listed companies, in fact, swung into losses at an operational level. The combined loss stood at Rs 25.79 millon compared to operating profit of Rs 186.73 million in the year-ago period.

 
Expenses were kept under tight control as projects fell, amounting to Rs 2.25 billion, or a drop of 37.48 per cent.

(We have taken UTV’s content financials which include airtime sales as they don’t disclose them separately. Also, expenses and net profit are not available for UTV and BAG separately).

The movie production houses also had a rough patch as it was caught in a row with multiplex operators, cluttered releases and high ratio of box office disasters.

The combined revenues of the five listed companies – UTV Motion Pictures, Cinevistaas, Pritish Nandy Communications, Mukta Arts and Shree Ashtavinayak - dropped 20.48 per cent to Rs 13.78 billion (from Rs 17.33 billion).

 
On an operational level, these companies, however, posted a profit of Rs 1.43 billion, up 2.6 per cent from the earlier year.
Expenses fell by 24 per cent to Rs 8.13 billion, as against Rs 10.71 billion in the year-ago period.

The content entertainment revenue pie, in fact, fell by 24.74 per cent in FY’10. Revenue of the listed film and television production companies stood at Rs 17.14 billion, down from Rs 22.77 billion a year ago.