News Broadcasting
Planetcast adds Desynova to extend its cloud media services and technology offering to boost global expansion
Mumbai: Planetcast Media Services, a broadcast technology and media services provider in India and Southeast Asia, announces that it has strategically invested in Desynova, a cutting-edge, cloud-native Content lifecycle Platform. Desynova’s solutions and services enable Planetcast to strengthen and expand its cloud-based content management capabilities for the global marketplace. Planetcast International will showcase Desynova’s Contido Platform as part of its portfolio of solutions and services on its 2023 NAB Show booth (W1467- West Hall) in Las Vegas, April 15-19.
“Desynova is a perfect addition for Planetcast through providing us with an agile, collaborative, cloud-native technology married to an intuitive UI that makes managing post-production and playout workflows smooth and seamless! While the Contido platform from Desynova broadens our solutions and services portfolio, it also brings marquee new customers and adds a significant boost to our global expansion plans,” said Planetcast Media Services CEO Sanjay Duda. “We welcome all of Desynova’s 120 employees to the Planetcast family and look forward to collaborating with them to provide the most powerful and flexible portfolio of Content Management solutions on the global market today.”
“The Desynova addition enables us to provide solutions and services that perfectly meet customer needs, both now and moving forward,” said Sanjay Duda. “Clearly, almost every media and entertainment company on the planet is moving to a cloud or hybrid-cloud architecture for their media distribution and management infrastructure. Media Asset Management is the pumping heart of media infrastructure; Desynova enables us to meet this evolution by integrating the Contido cloud-based content life cycle platform with other Planetcast solutions, such as playout and OTT delivery, to provide the best ‘full-stack’ solution for all our customers – while also furthering the continued development of AI-driven post-production capabilities, such as AI-assisted editing.”
Contido is a leading-edge, cloud-based content supply chain orchestration solution that simplifies and recalibrates the canvas of media production. It is a cloud-native Media Asset Management (MAM) system designed to handle video processing & publishing across multiple platforms seamlessly. Contido, which is already integrated with Planetcast’s solutions, is built on modules that flexibly work together to provide all the functionality required by broadcasters and content creators, including ingest, asset management, collaborative workflows, analytics, quality control, transcoding, subtitling and distribution.
Contido provides the flexibility to manage content; right from creating, securely distributing, and managing content items. As a platform, Contido allows multiple handles to always communicate and collaborate on projects.
“It’s been a fabulous journey from incorporation in the year 2017 to developing and providing a next-generation cloud content life cycle platform for customers, including Asia’s largest broadcast network and the world’s largest OTT platform,” said Desynova CEO & founder Balu Ramamurthy. “Our ultimate goal has always been to see as many as possible of the world’s leading media and entertainment brands deploying our solutions and services. Desynova’s Contido enables its customers to reach any screen, at any time, with any content from any location in the world — and to maximise consumer value and return on their valuable video assets.
Our new Planetcast relationship will help position Contido as a high-value addition to Planetcast’s existing suite of products and services, thus opening new markets and customers for us and helping accelerate our development roadmap. Through working with Planetcast on a joint customer, our Contido platform is already integrated with Planetcast’s broader solutions portfolio — and most importantly, this experience has convinced us that in Planetcast we have found the perfect partner.”
Planetcast Media Services partner & head Utsav Baijlal added, “We support the exciting strategic investment in Desynova, which broadens Planetcast’s already extensive services and solutions portfolio to further accelerate the company’s global expansion plans.”
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.
