Cable TV
E-City Digital to invest Rs 1 billion, have 500 theatres by FY 2008
MUMBAI: Subhash Chandra-promoted E-City Digital Cinemas Pvt Ltd plans to invest Rs 1 billion in digitising 500 cinema theatres by 2007-’08.
The company will start delivering movies to the theatres via satellite by next month. Currently, the hard disk is physically distributed to the 22 theatres in Gujarat which it has taken on hire basis. “We will be using the uplinking facility of Essel Shyam at Noida near Delhi. We are investing Rs 1 billion and plan to have 500 digital theatres by FY 2008 in Mumbai, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh territories,” says E-City Ventures CEO Atul Goel. Zee channels are also uplinked from Essel Shyam teleport at Noida.
Each theatre will have to invest Rs 2 million on the digital technology. E-City will make the investments and will pay fixed weekly theatre hire charges to the exhibitors. The contracts will be for a minimum period of five years. The company will also do deals with film distributors.
E-City is using Real Image’s encryption technology so that piracy is safeguarded. The movie is first converted into digital master using the telecine machine, after which it can be taken on to D5 tape or captured directly on the encoding server. After encryption and compression, the movie is uplinked to the satellite via transmission server and downloaded at the playout local server which is installed at the theatre. A digital projector is used for screening of the film.
E-City Digital Cinemas will target A-class towns where the current net collections are over Rs 100,000 per week. Part of the Essel Group of Industries, the company has current earnings of Rs 14 million from the 22 theatres it has recently started digitising. “As we aim to ramp up theatre acquisitions, we expect our revenues to touch Rs 2.5 billion by March-end 2009,” says Goel.
Digital cinema reduces industry costs by eliminating expensive prints that constitute 15-20 per cent of a film’s cost. It also attacks piracy as every show can have watermark indicating theatre, time and date, making it a customised copyright property. Exhibitors will also get first run movies and a simultaneous nationwide release is possible without distributing prints.
MUMBAI: When margins wobble, liquidity talks and in Q3 FY25-26, cash did most of the talking. Den Networks Limited closed the December quarter with consolidated revenue of Rs.251 crore, marginally higher than the previous quarter but down 4 per cent year-on-year, even as profitability stayed resilient on the back of strong cash reserves and disciplined cost control.
Subscription income softened to Rs.98 crore, slipping 3 per cent sequentially and 14 per cent from last year, while placement and marketing income offered some cheer, rising 15 per cent quarter-on-quarter to Rs.148 crore. Total costs climbed faster than revenue, up 7 per cent QoQ to Rs.238 crore, driven largely by higher content costs and operating expenses. As a result, EBITDA dropped sharply to Rs.13 crore from Rs.19 crore in Q2 and Rs.28 crore a year ago, pulling margins down to 5 per cent.
Yet, the bottom line refused to blink. Profit after tax stood at Rs.40 crore, up 15 per cent sequentially and only marginally lower than last year’s Rs.42 crore. A healthy Rs.57 crore in other income helped cushion operating pressure, keeping profit before tax at Rs.48 crore, broadly stable quarter-on-quarter despite the tougher cost environment.
The real headline-grabber, however, sits on the balance sheet. The company remains debt-free, with cash and cash equivalents swelling to Rs.3,279 crore as of December 31, 2025. Net worth rose to Rs.3,748 crore, while online collections accounted for 97 per cent of total receipts, underscoring strong cash discipline across operations, including subsidiaries.
In short, while Q3 showed signs of operating strain, the financial backbone remains solid. With zero gross debt, steady profits and a formidable cash war chest, the company enters the next quarter with flexibility firmly on its side proving that in uncertain markets, balance sheet strength can be the best growth strategy.
