Film Production
Balaji readies weekend serials
On the back of what has been a tremendously successful year for the Jeetendra Kapoor family-promoted Balaji Telefilms, the production house is expanding into new genres and time bands.
Among the more high-profile offerings that the Balaji stable is readying is a 39-part weekend series that is going on air within the next two months on “one of the top satellite channels,” CEO and managing director Shobha Kapoor said today, at an analysts’ meeting in south Mumbai outlining the company’s plans.
Slated to run as a one-hour show on Friday’s, Saturday’s and Sunday’s, Kapoor said it would be a high-cost production that would run for a total of 13 weeks. Another show that was launching in the weekend slot was a kid’s serial that would air on Sundays loosely modelled on a Superman like character, Kapoor said.
Rajesh Pavithran, vice-president – marketing, who gave a run down of the company’s plans said the company was increasingly focussed on increasing the number of commissioned programmes that it produced and was now restricting its programmes in the sponsored category to work it did for the southern language Sun Network.
Pavithran said that after making its presence felt in all the main southern language channels (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada), Balaji was next looking to enter Malayalam language programming on the Sun Network’s Surya channel.
The coming year would also see Balaji entering Punjabi and Bengali language programming, Pavithran said.
A point that was made during the briefing was that Balaji’s top three shows on Star Plus contributed 30 per cent of the company’s revenues. Pavithran also stressed that there was a big enough spread in the company’s programming base that no show contributed more than 15 per cent of revenues. One can assume that Hindi entertainment television’s top soap Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (KSBKBT) would be contributing the 15 per cent. Jeetendra Kapoor said that KSBKBT’s current sale price to Star was Rs 1,000,000 per episode. The numbers are revealing when one considers that when KSBKBT launched it was sold to Star at Rs 125,000 per episode. Average production cost per episode however, has only gone up 10 per cent, Jeetendra Kapoor said. Now that’s called tight cost control.
Film Production
AqyIon Nexus Reports Profit for Q3
Quarterly profit Rs 148 lakhs after debt repayment and asset sales.
MUMBAI: In a plot twist worthy of its television roots, AqyIon Nexus Limited, the rebranded avatar of Sri Adhikari Brothers Television Network has flipped the script on its finances, zapping away old woes with a jolt of quarterly profits.
Picture this, a company once tangled in debt webs, now emerging like a phoenix from the pixels. On 11 February 2026, the board, under managing director Srivatsava Sunkara, greenlit the unaudited results for the quarter ending 31 December 2025, revealing a revenue from operations of Rs 494.57 lakhs, a hefty leap from Rs 236.09 lakhs the previous year. Total income clocked in at Rs 494.65 lakhs, while the nine-month tally hit Rs 966.00 lakhs, up from Rs 470.88 lakhs.
But here’s the electrifying bit: profit before exceptional items surged to Rs 148.06 lakhs for the quarter, flipping last year’s modest Rs 11.55 lakhs gain. Factor in an exceptional item, a Rs 1,543.59 lakhs windfall from selling Andheri properties as per a 2023 NCLT resolution plan and the nine-month profit after tax dazzles at Rs 1,375.10 lakhs, a stark contrast to the prior period’s Rs 2,249.11 lakhs loss.
Expenditures? They tell a tale of tightening belts. Cost of materials consumed stood at Rs 275.00 lakhs for the quarter (nine months: Rs 690.00 lakhs), employee benefits at a slim Rs 4.16 lakhs (nine months, Rs 10.72 lakhs), and finance costs at Rs 34.06 lakhs (nine months, Rs 238.31 lakhs). Depreciation hummed along at Rs 1.44 lakhs quarterly (Rs 7.44 lakhs over nine months), with other expenses at Rs 31.94 lakhs (nine months, Rs 188.02 lakhs). Total outgoings?Rs 346.60 lakhs for the quarter, Rs 1,134.49 lakhs for nine months.
Auditors from Hitesh Shah & Associates gave a nod with caveats, noting the full repayment of bank liabilities sans a No Dues Certificate from Central Bank of India, pending tax impacts, and a going-concern basis despite current liabilities outpacing assets and negative other equity (pegged at -Rs 3,680.89 lakhs annually). Yet, management’s betting on new promoters’ support to keep the show running.
Earnings per share? A positive 0.58 for the quarter (nine months, 5.42), based on Rs 2,537.31 lakhs paid-up equity. Operating in the lone realm of content production and distribution, AqyIon’s narrative is no longer a sob story, it’s charging forward, proving that even in Mumbai’s bustling media maze, a name change and asset shuffle can ion-ise a comeback. Watch this space; the credits aren’t rolling yet.
