News Broadcasting
Cyber Media, HLL launch career show on DD Metro
MUMBAI: Fair & Lovely Career Baatein, a program on careers aimed at empowering young people, especially women, towards economic self-sustainability is being launched on national broadcaster Doordarshan’s Metro channel tomorrow.
Fair & Lovely Career Baatein will initially run on DD Metro for a period of 13 weeks and will air every Thursday in the youth segment of the channel, reaching over 126 cities and covering 35.6 per cent of India’s population, an official release claims.
The half-hour program is aimed at the aspiring young Indian – students, young professionals – in cities across India in an interactive, innovative format. Given the weekday slot at 6:30 pm, which shows the maximum viewership for educational and informative programs (non news and current affairs category), it is positioned immediately before the switch to daily entertainment viewing.
Each episode aims to showcase a particular career and examine the issues around it, including insights from a career counselor. A special segment in every episode titled Fair & Lovely Super Achiever of The Week will also highlight an achiever from this particular field. This will be followed by general career tips along with information on admissions, entrance tests, etc, and a segment which highlights campuses of educational institutions – through the eyes of the students themselves and anchored by a student from the concerned campus itself.
This program has been produced in association with the Fair & Lovely brand from Hindustan Lever Ltd, as part of the effort to reposition the brand’s identity towards empowerment of women through economic self-sustenance. Towards this end, HLL Fair & Lovely has held career fairs in Nagpur and Chandigarh and has also set up a database on careers-related information, the release says. The program is part of the front-end effort towards this stated goal of empowerment.
The program has been conceived, co-produced and marketed by Cyber TV, a division of infotech media house Cyber Media India Ltd. Cyber TV has earlier produced The Zenith Computer Show, which was anchored by former Nasscom chief, the late Dewang Mehta, again on DD Metro.
“Cyber Media’s latest TV initiative, in association with India’s largest advertiser and on India’s second largest TV channel, is part of the Group’s positioning as India’s largest mid-size media house in the intelligent information space,” said Rachna Burman, advisor, new projects & corporate strategy, Cyber Media Group.
News Broadcasting
Network18 Q4 revenue grows 9.7 per cent, EBITDA at Rs 30 crore
PAT improves to Rs 306.6 crore, margins steady amid cost pressures.
MUMBAI: Not all news is breaking, some of it is quietly improving. Network18 Media & Investments Limited appears to be doing just that, tightening losses and stabilising margins even as costs continue to weigh on the business. For FY26, the company reported revenue from operations of Rs 1,955.1 crore, up from Rs 1,896.2 crore in FY25, signalling modest top-line growth in a challenging media environment. Total income stood at Rs 1,978.2 crore, compared to Rs 1,913 crore a year earlier.
Profit after tax came in at Rs 306.6 crore for the year, a sharp turnaround from Rs 3,225.4 crore in FY25, largely reflecting the absence of large exceptional items that had inflated the previous year’s numbers. On a more comparable basis, the company’s operating performance showed signs of gradual stabilisation.
However, the quarterly picture remained under pressure. For the March quarter, Network18 reported a loss of Rs 53.1 crore, narrower than the Rs 98.1 crore loss in the same period last year, but still indicative of ongoing cost challenges.
Expenses continued to track high. Total expenses for FY26 stood at Rs 2,235.7 crore, up from Rs 2,197.8 crore in FY25. Key cost heads included operational expenses of Rs 765.9 crore, employee benefits of Rs 475.9 crore, and marketing, distribution and promotional spends of Rs 427.1 crore, underlining the continued investment required to sustain reach and engagement.
At an operating level, margins remained under strain. Operating margin stood at 2.33 per cent for FY26, marginally higher than 1.77 per cent in FY25, while net profit margin remained negative at -13.02 per cent, though improved from -14.89 per cent.
On the balance sheet, total assets rose to Rs 8,957.6 crore as of 31 March 2026, from Rs 8,317.5 crore a year earlier. Equity strengthened to Rs 4,958.7 crore, while borrowings increased to Rs 3,112.8 crore, reflecting a higher reliance on debt to support operations.
Cash flows told a mixed story. While financing activities generated Rs 83.9 crore, operating cash flow remained negative at Rs -24 crore, highlighting ongoing pressure on core cash generation. Cash and cash equivalents, however, improved to Rs 33.9 crore from Rs 1.8 crore.
The numbers point to a company in transition growing revenues, trimming losses, but still grappling with structural cost pressures. In a sector where scale often comes at a price, Network18 seems to be inching towards balance, one quarter at a time.
