News Broadcasting
Southern Spice fine tunes its act
MUMBAI: The only indigenous music channel south of the Vindhyas is sharpening its claws and getting ready for the fight that will break out in the genre later this year.
Barely three years old, Southern Spice is currently gloating over its march over national leader MTV, in prime time channel shares in Andhra Pradesh (Southern Spice is 34 per cent to MTV’s 25 per cent), in the second week of January 2004.
The only channel that clubs in all the four South Indian languages – Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, as well as English sees itself notching a 50 per cent increase in ad revenue over last year this fiscal.
Thanks to the increasing presence of national as well as local brands on the channel in the last one year, Southern Spice has taken another radical step recently – save a half hour show, all the hourly lottery draws that were telecast live on the channel (Southern Spice promoters have their origins in the lottery business) have been taken off. This, according to programming head Bryan Peppin, has helped ‘clean up’ the channel’s image, not to mention open up advertising inventory.
While the channel claims a lead over available rivals (none of MTV, Channel V, etc or Zee Music are south India oriented channels) since the last month in Kerala, it is see sawing between the number one and two positions in the other states as well. Except for Karnataka, where cosmopolitan Bangalore is still in favour of more national channels.
Interestingly, Karnataka callers are not requesting Kannada songs on SS, but opt for other languages, says Peppin. Thus, while Karnataka remains high on the agenda of Southern Spice, the channel has also aggressively begun to tackle markets out of the South, says ad sales head Nischal Kumtakar.
Mumbai and Delhi have already been probed and found potential markets for both viewership and advertising. The channel has set up seven national offices in cities including Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Coimbatore.
While the 2004 focus will be ground events, including a huge talent hunt to commence in March that will also convert into a televised event for nearly four months on the channel, Peppin says three new shows have also been lined up for the next quarter. One of these, High Five, based on a game show format will launch on 14 February. Other shows include a technology driven show and a ‘countdown show with a twist’, says Peppin, all of which are designed are keep viewers glued to a half hour show. This is pertinent as viewers could drop off when a song in another language comes up in a show. However, as actors often cross over to other Southern language films, this does not pose as big a problem, contends Peppin.
Armed with a song library of nearly 4000 regional songs and 4000 to 5000 English songs, Southern Spice currently boasts a cumulative reach of 10.55 per cent against MTV’s 13.35 per cent in the South (as per TAM figures for the week ended 17 January 2004). This again represents a see saw, as SS Music in December 2003 shot ahead of MTV with a cumulative reach of 11.31 per cent against MTV’s 9.13 per cent.
With advertisers like Britannia’s, Cadbury’s, Castrol and Zandu having acknowledged the strength of the SS Music brand, it was but a matter of time that broadcasters would look to fill the need for a direct competitor for SS Music. Till that materialises, SS Music is ensuring it gets its act together.
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.
