New Delhi Television

Q2 marks a slew of channel launches

After three quarters of subdued growth in revenues that raised concerns with regard to growth in New Delhi Television's (NDTV) core business, the company reported a strong growth of 46.5% in its stand-alone revenues to Rs67.8 crore for Q2FY2008. However, the overall cost structure for the core business (the stand-alone operations) increased by 15.2% quarter on quarter (qoq) to Rs65.3 crore. We believe some part of the increase is attributable to the launch of the city-centric channel NDTV metronation, which caters to Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). While the company's production and operating & administrative expenses mounted during the quarter as expected, what is pleasing to see is that its marketing and distribution costs, which had been continuously rising for the past few quarters, showed a 12.9% decline sequentially. Thus, on a stand-alone basis, the company posted an operating profit of Rs2.5 crore against an operating loss of Rs5.5 crore in Q2FY2007.