News Broadcasting
Vir Sanghvi hosts ‘Faces & Names’ on SABe TV
MUMBAI: Meeting of Minds, the show hosted by Vir Sanghvi on SABe TV has been replaced with his new chat show Faces & Names, as of yesterday.
The new show is essentially a profile based chat show wherein the celebrity guest answers questions put forth by the audience and pre-recorded questions by the general public interspersed with questions from Vir Sanghvi. It also includes a special segment which showcases bytes of people associated (both personally and professionally) with the celebrity guest.
“We realised that the format of Meeting of Minds, which had a run of 40 episodes, had become quite similar to that of Court Martial hosted by Karan Thapar on Thursdays. Both the programmes featured a host and two guests which was obviously getting monotonous,” said SABe TV, executive producer, Charu Singh, when asked what prompted the change in programmes.
The new show airs Tuesdays at 10:30 pm.The first episode featuring Bollywood heroine Preity Zinta was aired yesterday.
“The channel has plans of introducing a couple of new current affairs programmes sometime after February next year,” Singh said. “However, these shows would be shown sometime during the day and not as part of the prime time current affairs band,” she said.
The other programmes on the channel’s 10:30 pm current affairs band include Line of Fire with Karan Thapar as host on Mondays, Kuch Khaas Baatein hosted by Swati Chaturvedi (which incidentally replaced Shekhar Suman’s Aap Aur Main) on Wednesdays, Court Martial with Karan Thapar again on Thursdays and Khulla Manch hosted by Manoj Raghuvanshi on Fridays.
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.
