BENGALURU: Subhash Chandra’s Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) reported more than double (2.36 times) consolidated total comprehensive income (TCI)for the year ended 31 March 2017 (FY-17, current year) as compared to the previous year. Zeel’s consolidated TCI of Rs 2,112.28 in FY-17 (as compared to TCI of Rs 892.68 crore in fiscal 2016) was padded up to an extent of Rs 1,223.34 crore by the slump sale/transfer of its sports business along with its entire stake in– Taj Television (India) Pvt. Ltd. Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) for FY-17 stood at Rs 19,26.9 crore registering a growth of 27.3 percent over FY16. EBITDA margin stood at 29.9 percent.

The company’s revenue (Total Income from operations – TIO) for the current year increased 10.8 percent to Rs 6,658.17 crore as compared to Rs 6007.67 crore in the previous year. Advertisement revenue in FY-17 was Rs 3,673.5 crore, recording a growth of 9.2 percent over FY16.

Subscription revenue for FY17 was Rs 2262.9 crore, growth of 10.0 percent over FY16. Domestic subscription revenue grew by 11.2 percent to Rs 1822.6 crore. On a comparable basis, adjusted for sale of sports, the domestic subscription growth was 13.5 percent. International subscription revenue grew by 3.0 percent to Rs 440.3 crore.

Company speak

Zeel chairman Chandra said, “The Indian economy has exhibited strong resilience with GDP growth of 7 percent in Q3-17 despite demonetization of high value currency. Implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) would unify India into one market. This along with other reforms and push on infrastructure would accelerate growth from already healthy levels. A normal monsoon as forecasted by IMD could give a fillip to rural consumption.”

Zeel managing director and CEO Punit Goenka said, “We are happy to deliver yet another quarter of strong financial performance despite the difficult economic environment. Our domestic advertising revenue grew by 8.1 percent despite the impact of demonetization. After a couple of quarters of weakness, advertising growth appears to be back on track. The GST roll-out could boost advertising spends as a part of potential tax savings might be reinvested. While there is uncertainty regarding the implementation of the new tariff regulation due to pending litigations, we have published the prices of our channels and bouquets. We are confident that with the strong competitive position of our channels in every genre, we will be able to drive subscription business.

We have completed the first phase of sale of sports business during the quarter. While this had an impact on revenues, our focus is to strengthen national and regional channel portfolio, along with growing new businesses. We are exploring ways to extinguish preference share liability using the proceeds from the sale of sports business.”