News Broadcasting
News, events, shows in Sahara Samay Mumbai’s gamut
MUMBAI: “Real time television, which is effectively reality TV.”
That about sums up what Sahara Samay Mumbai, which soft launches 1 September, is all about, according to the news channel head Rajeev Bajaj.
With the news channel space getting increasingly cluttered, Bajaj believes the way to get noticed is to go beyond just news and offer the channel as an infotainment product. Aside from the news, there will be a strong emphasis on events and current affairs programming that is in the talk show format, says Bajaj.
The official launch, as already reported on indiantelevision.com, is scheduled for 15 September with the interim two-week period being utilised to fine-tune proceedings. Bajaj appears to be drawing on his experience when he was heading the Mumbai print tabloid Daily in the focus of coverage the channel has planned. As far as events are concerned, it will not just be the religious and cultural events in Mumbai (and other cities of the three states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa) that get coverage.
SPORTS EVENTS
Sports events, especially at the school level, will form a key ingredient of Sahara Samay Mumbai’s menu, according to Bajaj. “We’ll have a series of sports events in all the districts with a grand finale in Mumbai,” says Bajaj. The competitions will involve a full spread of sports right from track and field to football and hockey, informs Bajaj. Sahara is also bidding to tap non-urban viewers through its events coverage and will be taking news crews to rural areas to cover Indian sports competitions like kabbadi, kho-kho, Indian style wrestling and bullock cart racing, to name a few, Bajaj points out.
PUBLIC GRIEVANCES
But it is Mumbai that will be the focus, affirms Bajaj. “Within Mumbai, we will have complete and comprehensive coverage,” says Bajaj. Civic issues will be another focus area, he says, adding that the channel would attempt to address public grievances by getting concerned officials from various departments to respond to complaints.
BULLETINS IN FOUR LANGUAGES
While in the main, it would be “Bambayya” Hindi (as opposed to the Sanskritised Hindi on Sahara Samay Rashtriya) that is spoken on the channel, news bulletins in Marathi (four per day), Gujarati (four) and English (two) are also part of the news packages.
Delivering all this news output is a 150-strong team in addition to a stringer network covering the whole of Maharashtra, Gujarat and a little bit of Goa, claims Bajaj. And providing the technical back-up necessary to keep news delivery up to speed is a vast V-SAT network that Sahara already has in place.
Also Read:
Sahara set to soft launch two more region-specific news channels 1 September
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.
