News Broadcasting
Workshop urges media education to filter television messages
MUMBAI: If the soaps don’t change, the audience will have to.
That was the gist of a day-long workshop on media and gender equality held jointly by the Maharashtra State Commission for Women and the Delhi based Centre for Advocacy and Research. Agreeing that neither advertisements nor content on television are going to turn a new leaf overnight, panellists – who ranged from adman Prahlad Kakkar, UTV director Zarina Mehta and documentary filmmaker Chandita Mukherjee, concurred that the right way to deal with the medium and the message would be raise the levels of media education in the country.
Amid some lively sparring in the session on Making Satellite Televison accountable to public interest-setting and exchanging perspectives, CFAR’s Akhila Sivadas pointed out that the challenge today was to create qualitative difference in response to what is currently being shown on televison. While self regulation among broadcasters came up as an viable alternative to perpetuating politically correct gender equality on television, Sivadas also stressed on the need for media education among citizens, particularly among children, as one of the coping mechanisms to deal with conflicting messages from TV.
The workshop turned out to be one of the rare forums in recent days that heralded the implementation of conditional access in the country with warm anticipation. “CAS is going to be real arbiter; now we will really know where viewers are willing to put their money,” Mukherjee said. Added Sivadas, “CAS will now determine whether the channels’ claim that viewer preferences dictate programming strategy holds water.”
Mukherjee stressed that media education should be integrated with mainstream education so that kids learn to filter the messages that they are constantly bombarded with, former Zee TV president and now independent producer Madhavi Mutatkar opined that often parents themselves do not filter out programmes that could be skipped by children.
The result is echoed in studies done by CFAR which show that throughout the country, televison viewing increasingly dominates out of school activities making children restless, inattentive and distracted. The studies also show that children are exposed to one dimensional representation of the family, which is the site of oppression and rigid sex role modelling. Blurring of distinction between the real and the reel and excessive violence on screen is adding to the next generation’s skewed view of reality, the study indicates.
Prahlad Kakkar, who spoke on advertising and gender equality, said that while some ads blatantly exploit the female form in advertising and some play on skin colour, it is the more insidious messages that certain ads convey which are more dangerous. “Don’t get derailed by the issue of the female form in advertising,” he added, “It is ads like the Surf (Lalitaji) ads which distract from the main issues and implicitly question a woman’s competence outside the home, reaffirm her role as a homemaker.”
The simplest way to change the current advertising mindset, he said, would be to reject a product and run it out of the marketplace or to mobilise celebrity support for a campaign against offending ads, which would be more effective in generating public opinion.
UTV’s Mehta, the only production house representative at the workshop, defended the current crop of soaps saying they are the only ones working today and that if they didn’t evoke a strong emotional chord with viewers, no one would be watching these. While Doordarshan Mumbai station director Mukesh Sharma pointed out that his was the only regional channel to take up issues like sex education on live phone in interactive shows, Mehta countered that UTV’s Shaka Laka Boom Boom had taken a similar route by incorporating the theme of tackling blindness by including a blind character in the serial.
Sharma however maintained that the public broadcaster’s hands were tied due to paucity of funds which do not allow DD to come up with better quality programming. Secured funding to allow experimentation needs a revenue stream like television sets license fees ( a proposal recently rejected by the Centre). Sharma added that DD Mumbai had nevertheless managed a revenue of Rs 250 million last fiscal.
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.
