Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) has reported a profit of INR 209.4 crores for the quarter ending in September 2024. This announcement marks an incredible 70.24% increase in profit from the same quarter last year, where ZEEL posted a profit of INR 123 crores. This comes as a result of multiple steps including, but not limited to, effective cost management, reduction in advertising revenue and an uptick in subscriber revenue.
According to ZEEL, their advertising revenue declined by 7.98% to INR 901.7 crores from INR 979.2 crores in the same quarter last year. This was paired with a simultaneous increase in subscription revenue which grew by 9.25%, from INR 887.8 crores to INR 969.9 crores.
As per ZEEL, “Macro ad environment softness has restrained our ability to drive advertising revenue growth. The ad revenue performance remains ahead of comparable industry peers while strengthened competitive positioning with 60 bps network viewership share gain in the last two-quarters and well positioned to capitalize on ad spends recovery.”
Furthermore, ZEEL also shared that their domestic advertising revenue declined by 9% year-over-year, speculated to be impacted by a muted ad spending environment in the second quarter of FY25. With the upcoming festive season, while ad spending is expected to pick up, a sustainable recovery is what ZEEL is looking for. Hence, while their ad revenue went down, it was compensated by their subscription business where ZEEL stated that they are continuing with healthy growth, driven by both linear subscription revenue post NTO 3.0 and ZEE5.
Additionally, ZEEL’s total income declined by 18.94%, from INR 2509.6 crores in Q2FY24 to INR 2034.4 crores. The company’s expenses decreased by 20.25% to INR 1759 crores and their operational cost also went down by 25.53% to INR 1061.5 crores. Other, relatively smaller, expenses such as the company’s employee benefit expenses declined by 12.47% to INR 227.5 crores and the advertising and publicity expenses went down by 5.05% to INR 259.3 crores.