TV18’s new initiative loss narrows to Rs 45 cr in FY18 due to fewer launches

With no major launch taking place, TV18’s new initiative losses in FY18 was Rs 45 crore. This is a huge decline from the new initiative loss of Rs 366 crore that the company incurred in FY17.

In FY18, TV18’s major launch was in the entertainment space. The company launched regional GEC Colors Tamil in February. In national news space, no new channels were launched.

The company defines the new initiative losses as the operating losses of any major new launch or project which is declared for a period of four quarters from the launch at an aggregate entity level.

In its FY18 presentation, the company noted that it is focussed on filling whitespaces and scaling up in areas of leadership over the last three years. It has identified regional and digital as two axes for growth via new launches.

Whereas in FY17, the company had a slew of launches in entertainment (TV and digital), regional news, and factual entertainment space.

The company had launched three regional news channels News18 Tamil, News18 Kerala, and News18 Assam North East. It had also launched over the top (OTT) platform Voot.

The new channel launches in FY17 included Hindi movie channel Rishtey Cineplex, second Kannada GEC Colors Super, Hindi music channel MTV Beats, and lifestyle entertainment channel FYI TV18.

The loss from general entertainment launches were Rs 266 crore while regional news and factual entertainment launches stood at Rs 73 crore and Rs 27 crore respectively.

In FY16, the new initiative losses stood at Rs 160 crore. The key launches in that fiscal were English entertainment channel Colors Infinity and Nick HD+. The company also incurred losses on the rebranding of regional entertainment channels to Colors brand. It had also launched ETV News Odia during the fiscal.

The loss from general entertainment in FY16 was Rs 95 crore followed by regional news (Rs 45 crore), and re-branding (Rs 45 crore).

TV18’s consolidated operating EBITDA in FY18 jumped 41% to Rs 240 crore from Rs 170 crore. Revenue increased 16% to Rs 4813 crore from Rs 4142 crore.

TV18 had taken operational control and increased its stake to 51% in Viacom18 by acquiring 1% equity from JV partner Viacom Inc. Viacom18 and Indiacast became subsidiaries of TV18 from 28th February 2018 and hence the reported financials of TV18/Network18 consolidate these entities now.