News Broadcasting
Radio City pips rivals to the post in Warne news coverage
MUMBAI: Radio City, the Star-fed FM radio channel managed to get around the forbidden terrain of live cricket coverage by being the first FM station in the country to report the Shane Warne drug test failure episode in its live hourly update on Tuesday morning.
The station claims to have been the first among rivals in reporting the incident, scoring brownie points in programming efficiency and speed. Programming around the World Cup on the FM radio stations has been a mixture of the trivial and the pedantic, ranging from celebrity wishes for the team to dredging of cricket archives over the last half century.
Radio City says it has live hourly updates with Joy Bhattacharya in South Africa, who broke the news of Warne’s indictment soon after the media got wind of it. RED FM too has India Today sports editor Sharda Ugra too in South Africa, offering live glimpses into the matches and regular updates.
While the private radio stations have been restricted in their scope of airing live news coverage from South Africa, the
race is now on among the five private stations to beat each other in regular updates. Public broadcaster All India Radio, on the other hand, has hardly tom tommed the fact that live commentary of all the India matches is available on all the local AIR stations.
According to Radio City, Bhattacharya first reported Warne’s drug test results on Tuesday morning and repeated the link in the afternoon. “We were committed from the beginning to ensure that the listeners get to hear the World Cup updates first on Radio City”, says Radio City COO Sumantra Dutta.
Earlier this month, Radio City rolled out a comprehensive package on-air for its listeners for the World Cup cricket season. It started off with launch of the official World Cup Cricket album on the station featuring the current favorite song Khel Na re by Vasundhara Das and Sudesh Bhosle. Listeners across Radio City stations in Mumbai, Bangalore and Lucknow have the opportunity of winning exclusive official World Cup cricket merchandise.
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.
