News Broadcasting
DALVI readies to enter Indian market with set top boxes
While broadcasters, MSOs, cable ops and consumers grapple the possibilities and frailties of CAS in India, set top box manufacturers are dealing with the more practical aspects of the system.
DALVI, a six-year-old encryption systems company that’s looking to be a major player in the conditional access market in the country, is one such. The company that has been in talks with MSOs and cable ops for the last two years has already migrated from having a linear power supply to a switch mode power supply in order to cater for voltage variation within India. The company has also had to develop and deploy a fingerprinting functionality to help combat the use of illegal signals being transmitted throughout the country, says DALVI’s business development manager Lewis Zimbler. This functionality enables the operator to make any decoder transmit a number on the TVs that it is feeding signals to, he says.
Manufacturers also have to reduce prices to enable them to compete in the Indian marketplace, by using strategic Indian partners and using Indian manufacture. While DALVI currently operates only for analogue systems, digital systems are also being simultaneously developed, says Zimbler. The DALVI system encoders can readily interface with standard video modulators used in SMATV, CATV, VHF/UHF and MMDS so making upgrading to DALVI simpler, he says.
The DALVI system uses an in-band addressing system such that a single HeadEnd can service any form of RF network, i.e., terrestrial, HFC, Coax, MMDS and Satellite or a combination of any transmission media. This means that an operator can have total control from a single location for a variety of networks. The system caters for 99 scrambled channels, offers 48 tiers, can control any number of headends from a single location and supports Pay Per View.
The company has tied up with Catvision Products for distribution and is already in discussions with partners for setting up its own STB manufacturing facility in India.
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.
