Mumbai: TV18 Broadcast Ltd has announced its results for the quarter ended 30 September 2023.
Viacom18 becomes ‘the destination’ for sports in India
Viacom18, in its quest to become the primary destination for sports in India, continues to aggregate rights of leading sports properties. With acquisition of exclusive media rights for the BCCI International and Domestic matches, it has become the home of India cricket. The rights include international men’s, women’s, and other domestic first-class competitions like Ranji Trophy. Viacom18 acquired both the Indian sub-continent and global television and digital rights for the next 5 years for Rs 5,963 crores.
As the most loved sports in India, cricket (BCCI, IPL) will enable the Company to drive a step jump in audience footfalls, especially on JioCinema, as live sports consumption continues to pivot towards digital. Broadcast rights will strengthen the Company’s channel bouquet and will enable it to broaden its broadcast content portfolio and serve quality content to all its viewers. With the new features launched during IPL, Viacom18 has enhanced the Indian viewer experience like never before, and it will continue to drive innovations to delight its audience.
Viacom18 also added the Indian Super League, the highest level of the Indian football league system, to its portfolio. With a constellation of marquee sports properties like IPL, WPL, Olympics 2024, SA20, Major League Cricket (MLC), Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT), NBA, Diamond League, World Athletics Championships Budapest 2023, MotoGP, La Liga, Ligue1, Serie A, Abu Dhabi T10, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, and top BWF events, Viacom18 has established itself as India’s #1 destination for sports.
JioCinema takes the entertainment streaming game to the next level
JioCinema is quickly scaling up as one of the leading streaming platforms for entertainment content. The second season of India’s most popular reality show in a digital-exclusive format, Bigg Boss OTT, became the biggest ever reality show on digital, with record concurrency and voting during the finale. The season wrapped up with 100 mn viewers consuming 30 bn minutes of content on smartphones and CTVs. User engagement was at an unprecedented level with 5.4 bn votes logged through the season, highlighting the scale and connect of the show with users. The grand finale was the most streamed live entertainment event in India with 23 mn viewers and a peak concurrency of 7.2 mn. During the 15 minutes live voting window for selecting top 2 finalists, 250 mn votes were received. • Popular network reality shows also saw an exponential growth in digital consumption. Khatron Ke Khiladi S13 saw 2x viewers and 1.5x video views compared to the previous season and Roadies S19 delivered 7x viewers and 4x watch-time of the previous season. • Original shows released during the quarter also garnered wide reach and engagement. Taali (starring Sushmita Sen) featured in ‘Top 10 OTT Originals of the Week1’ for more than 5 weeks in a row. The show reached a record 20 mn viewers in the first week of release. Kaalkoot also featured among ‘Top 10 OTT Originals of the Week1’ for 3 weeks in a row and was watched by 25 mn viewers.
TV18 News Network maintains dominance in key markets; Entertainment network share strengthened viewership share by 50 bps
TV18 News continued to be the highest reach network in the country, reaching ~190 mn people around the country every week. The network maintained its leadership position in key markets with CNBC TV18, News18 India, and CNN News18 being the #1 channels in their respective genres. TV18 was also the leader in primetime in the Hindi speaking markets, solidifying its position as the network of choice in the region. The network had leadership in 5 regional markets, including UP/Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, MP/Chhatisgarh. News18 Lokmat, the Marathi language channel, climbed viewership charts to become the second ranked channel, driven by the programming initiatives launched over the past year.
TV network share increased by 50 bps to 10.5%, driven by the performance of Sports and Movies channels. Colors was the #2 channel in primetime with 18% market share and exited the quarter with 2 of its fiction shows featuring in the top 10 list. Colors Kannada continued to be a strong #2 channel in the Kannada genre. Viacom18 Studios released Rocky Rani Ki Prem Kahani and OMG 2 during the quarter, and both the movies were commercially successful as well as critically acclaimed.
Strong growth in revenue as the company continues to make investments in growth businesses
TV news network delivered a strong growth in advertising revenue despite the continued weakness in advertising environment. Excluding government initiatives, the news industry saw a decline in ad inventory consumption. News18’s revenue growth was underpinned by the strong viewership share that the network has achieved over the last eighteen months which has helped it to improve pricing across the network. TV18’s sharp focus on building IP events business has also helped it drive growth in revenue.
Viacom18 saw a sharp growth in advertising revenue in Sports and Digital segments. Sports revenue was driven by the two cricket series - West Indies vs India and India vs Australia. Digital revenue was led by original shows like Bigg Boss OTT, Taali, Kaalkoot and TV network shows like Khatron Ke Khiladi. Advertising demand in the entertainment broadcast segment continues to be soft as spending by consumer goods companies and new-age clients remains weak.
EBITDA declined as the business made investments in growth verticals - Sports and Digital. Both these verticals require investments in the near term to build a strong consumer proposition which will help the Company rise to the leadership position in the cluttered media landscape. We are building a strong catalog of entertainment content which will leverage the exponential increase in audience traffic that sports enables. Our endeavor is to make JioCinema the default destination for consumers across the country looking for quality content.
TV18 chairman Adil Zainulbhai said, “We continue to take giant steps towards building the network of choice for Indian consumers. With India cricket rights, Viacom18 now has the biggest portfolio of sports properties, making it the default choice for sports fans. Our news network has fortified its positions across the markets which bodes well as we head into the festive season followed by elections. Our focus continues to be on providing quality content to audience and as India’s only network with presence across news, entertainment, and sports, we are in a unique position to serve customers across the country and demographic cohorts.”
