News Broadcasting
BT Broadcast, Dish TV in distribution deal
MUMBAI: BT Broadcast Services (BTBS), the broadcast and media solutions arm of British Telecom (BT), announced on Tuesday that it had signed a distribution agreement with ASC Enterprise’s direct-to-home (DTH) platform Dish TV.
The agreement enables European and US broadcasters to, for the first time, tap into India by jointly marketing the DTH capacity on Dish TV. Besides the Indian subcontinent, this agreement also applies to other English speaking markets in the Asia Pacific.
Commenting on the other implications of the tie-up, Essel Group additional vice-chairman Jawahar Goel said, “The deal with BT was signed a couple of weeks ago and will facilitate the playout of the Zee Channels in the UK and the American markets.”
BT’s towers would be used by Zee to send its eight-odd channels on the various platforms in the US and UK. In the UK, Zee channels are also available on the BSkyB platform.
Information available with indiantelevision.com indicates that as part of the package deal, on an average, Zee would be paying BT about Rs 700,000 per channel per month to be taken to the US and the UK markets.
Apart from providing teleport services, BT has also offered Zee that it can bring non-Indian channels to be added to the Dish TV platform, which has been agreed upon to “gauge the performance of BT,” a senior executive of Essel Group said.
Both BTBS and ASC Enterprises will market an end-to-end service that includes:
* 3Mb/s (the Dish TV standard) of capacity on the platform;
* encryption using Conax conditional access;
* a Dish TV EPG listing;
* 24 hour signal quality monitoring from BT Tower;
* full resilience, with redundant equipment automatically switched into service within 1 second of any failure;
* contribution of signals from Europe and the US to India, Australia and other English speaking markets in Asia;
* access to Dish TV subscriber community – currently standing at 150,000 and forecast to grow to 1.5 million by end-2004*;
* ultra-short lead-time – the service can be provided within 1 month of contract signature;
* subscriber management for premium channels that charge for the content provided.
In addition, there are a number of premium services, including standards conversion between NTSC and PAL, time shifting to allow repurposing of content between time zones and seamless bit rate conversion.
BT Broadcast Services CEO Mark Smith said, “In the past, there have been significant barriers to entry for European and US broadcasters to the exciting and rapidly growing Indian, Australian and Asian English speaking markets, and this new service makes it much easier, and more cost effective, for this to be achieved.”
“BTBS and ASC Enterprises TV have consolidated our international broadcasting capabilities to create a powerful channel to this key global market,” Smith added.
ASC Enterprises director Amitabh Kumar said, “ASC Enterprises is very pleased to be at the forefront of bringing US and European TV channels to satellite TV viewers on the Indian Subcontinent. Our joint offering with BT Broadcast Services presents a fantastic opportunity for global broadcasters to transmit their channels to a new potential audience of one billion people.”
Set top box/dish packages will be sold to consumers through Zee TV’s 10,000 resellers, and revenue collection and subscriber management will be handled by Zee TV’s sister company, ASCEL. According to the Zee Group’s current forecasts, Dish TV’s subscriber base, which currently stands at 150,000, will grow to 1.5 million by end-2004.
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.
