MUMBAI: Pacing up its localisation strategy in global markets, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) has launched its second channel in the Middle East.

Zee Alwan comes after Zee Aflam has seen reasonable growth and reached break-even status within three years. The Arabic channel, with content aimed at Arab family audiences, comes under Zee?s Asian television network arm, Zee Entertainment Enterprise LLC.

The broadcasting network had in 2008 launched a 24-hour free-to-air movie channel, Zee Aflam, in the Middle East.

Zee Alwan will have a content mix that include a diverse choice of Arabic serials and popular Indian TV serials dubbed in Arabic. A number of Arabic serials, produced and set in the Arab world, will also be aired. In the menu will include shows on cookery, health and fitness and travel features.

Zee Alwan will mark the arrival of Indian soaps to the Middle East. Says Zee Entertainment Enterprise LLC CEO - Middle East, North Africa & Pakistan Mukund Cairae, "With Zee Alwan, we are delighted to offer our audiences in the Arab world a dedicated channel that presents popular Indian serials dubbed in Arabic, and tailored for Arabic family audiences. The cultural context outlined in these popular serials will resonate with Arabic audiences as they are essentially about human values, family bonding, friendships and relationships. The historic ties between the Arab world and India will further enable Arabic audiences to relate to the serials."

Zee Alwan will be transmitted from Dubai with an operational office in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Viewers can receive the channel through frequency 12417 on Nilesat and 12111 Arabsat.

According to Cairae, the new channel will expand Zee?s footprint in the region which saw the launch of Zee Aflam, a Bollywood dedicated channel airing movies sub-titled in Arabic.

"We have already established a strong footprint in the Arab world through Zee Aflam, a channel dedicated to Bollywood films, dubbed or with subtitles in Arabic. Today, we are regarded as the ?Gateway to Bollywood for the Arab world? and with Zee Alwan we are taking our audience engagement to the next level with television serials and other lifestyle content, in addition to a strong bouquet of local programming," he says.

Zee?s other localisation experiments are already on in Malaysia, Russia and, to a limited extent, in France in partnership with Canal.

MUMBAI: Clouded with a steep valuation over the acquisition of Eenadu TV?s partial assets, the rescue act of Mukesh Ambani has failed to considerably enthuse investors after the Raghav Bahl-promoted Network18 Media and TV18 Broadcast got a first-day lift following the announcement of the deal.

The positives in the form of cleaning up debt, getting the backing of India?s leading business house Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and possible gains in subscription revenues with the inclusion of regional broadcasting firm ETV were negated by the lack of disclosure in how much indirect stake RIL will have in the listed entities and what terms the OCDs (Optionally Convertible Debentures) would have.

The lack of interest and somewhat rejection from shareholders and investors is evident from the fact that in the last two days, shares of TV18 fell over 8.6 per cent, after breaching the upper circuit on 3 January.

Network18 scrip, which touched a high of Rs 55.5 per share on 4 January, has come down to Rs 49.7 per share on the last closing day at the BSE.

Financial analysts told Indiantelevision.com that the jump was an aberration and in the short term, the stock may start to drag.

In the first two days (3, 4 January), the stock price of Network18 and TV18 companies had gone up 37 per cent and 30 per cent respectively, before the reality sunk in and the scrips started falling on Thursday.

As of Friday, TV18 scrip closed at Rs 30.80, while Network18 closed at Rs 49.70. Incidentally, the rights issue price of TV18, which is to be not more than Rs 40 per equity share and Network18 (not more than Rs 60 per equity share), is more than the current stock price.

The market cap of minority shareholders of the two companies ? TV18 and Network18 - is Rs around 8.3 billion (as of 4 January?s closing price). This provides a disincentive to them to subscribe to the rights issues of the two entities where they will have to possibly cough out Rs 23 billion.

?If the minority shareholders do not subscribe to the rights issues of the two companies, the promoter stake will be pretty high. We could even see a delisting if the promoter holding goes up to very high levels,? said a media analyst at a local broking firm who did not want his name to be revealed.

A different perspective, not widely accepted, was offered by a stock broker. "The best time to collect the shares of TV18 and Network18 would be to wait till their financial performance improves. Also, a good time could be when the rights issue is on the way so that the trend would be captured," he said.

The other media stocks also rose briefly due to the immediate impact of the deal. Almost all listed media entities saw a northward trend in their stock price on the day when the deal was announced (3 January).

Among the players in the news business, TV Today Network closed 16.36 per cent higher on 3 January compared to its previous close. Other players like NDTV (14.29 per cent) and Zee News (5.64 per cent) also closed on a high.

Shares of Sun TV (2.51 per cent), UTV Software Communications (1.2 per cent), Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (0.9 per cent), and Reliance Broadcast Network (0.1 per cent) marginally jumped.

"The media industry has its own set of challenges. Media stocks momentarily went up because of Mukesh Ambani making his big bang entry into the media sector. That euphoria has died down. The sector has to focus on profitability before it regains its old valuations," a market analyst said.

Also Read:

Demystifying the Reliance-TV18-ETV deal

Mukesh Ambani?s big media bet

Mukesh Ambani forays into media via TV18

TV18 to snap up ETV, plans rights issue

Reliance Industries in deal with TV18 Group?

MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) business head - APAC Region Tarun Mehra has decided to move on.

Mehra was with Zeel for over seven years. He resigned in December and is currently serving his notice period.

Mehra confirmed the development to Indianelevision.com; However, he did not divulge his future move.

Mehra had joined Zeel in 2005 as VP ? marketing for the flagship Hindi general entertainment channel Zee TV. Later he was elevated to business head in 2007. Since April 2009, he was given the responsibility of the Asia Pacific region.

Prior to Zeel, Mehra had worked with Shaw Walles and L?Oreal India.

MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) expects ad revenue growth to stay muted this fiscal but a cut in costs will protect the Indian broadcasting company?s profitability.

The company?s expenses outside sports will be up 15 per cent but overall spending will be lower. The losses from sports will stay within the guidance of Rs 1 billion, down from Rs 2.08 billion in the earlier fiscal.

?We do not expect a big bounce back in ad revenues. The environment is less predictable,? said Zeel president corporate strategy and business development Atul Das.

Zeel?s ad revenues are under pressure, both in terms of volumes and ad rates. Besides a slowdown in the advertising economy, the company?s flagship channel Zee TV and regional channel Zee Marathi have lost market share.

The company posted a 4.2 per cent drop in ad revenue to Rs 3.95 billion for the three-month period ended September 2011.

"If you take out the sports business, we have actually posted a growth in ad revenue over the same quarter last year. In the second quarter of the previous fiscal, we had bigger cricketing events. But the ad climate will stay weak this fiscal," said Das.

Zee TV, which is now fourth in the Hindi GEC pecking order, will not make any dramatic shift in its programming strategy. The programming hours will increase from 29 hours per week to 33 hours. The thrust, though, will be to fix the primary slots before launching original shows in the ancillary time bands.

"We had chalked out a strategy of upping the original programming hours much before we lost market share. Our investments are independent of the loss in share," averred Das.

The sports business loss for the first half of this fiscal stands at Rs 792 million. "We are confident of meeting our earlier guidance of maximum loss of Rs 1 billion from the sports business this fiscal," said Das.

Zee has rights for South Africa-Australia and Pakistan-Sri Lanka cricket series in the second half of FY‘12.

Zeel has a net cash of Rs 11.1 billion. The company has gone slow on its buyback programme, having spend Rs 1.65 billion so far.

"We had said we could go up to Rs 7 billion. We have spent Rs 1.65 billion so far, but have time till March 2012," said Das.

MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) has posted a first-quarter performance that smells of a slowdown in advertising revenues for the media sector as one of India‘s largest television broadcasting companies has guided to a below double-digit growth this fiscal.

Zeel has disappointed market estimates as it reported a 13.3 per cent slide in consolidated net profit, impacted by a slowing ad revenue growth while expenses jumped with the company anticipating buoyancy in the economy.

Advertising revenue for the three-month period ended June 2011 grew just 0.5 per cent to Rs 3.79 billion. The flagship Hindi general entertainment channel, Zee TV, came under pressure even as it held on to its third position way behind rivals Star Plus and Colors.

Zeel MD and CEO Punit Goenka feels there is a softening in the advertising economy. "While our business fundamentals remain strong, the environment for ad spends has been weak, in our view, and to an extent the change of pace was quite fast. We are hopeful that with the onset of festive season, we should see some normalcy in advertising spends," he said. 

Subscription revenue stayed strong but the 16.7 per cent growth couldn‘t quite make up the growth pace that Zeel was anticipating. Operating revenue rose 3.1 per cent to Rs 6.98 billion from Rs 6.77 billion a year ago.

Net profit fell to Rs 1.30 billion (from Rs 1.50 billion) while expenses grew by 10.7 per cent.

Meanwhile, the consolidated operating profit (Ebitda) for the quarter skid 16.6 per cent to Rs 1.56 billion, from Rs 1.87 billion in the year-ago period. 

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Subscription revenue managed a strong double-digit growth. Domestic subscription revenue stood at Rs 2.07 billion, while international subscription revenue stayed at Rs 976 million.

Revenue from domestic DTH operators, part of domestic subscription revenue, was at Rs 1.11 billion, up 55.9 per cent. Subscription revenue from international operations dropped 3.5 per cent, while subscription revenue from domestic cable increased by 8.4 per cent.

Zeel chairman Subhash Chandra said, "The widespread adoption of satellite based television services via DTH is proving to be a big game changer for television business in India and creating a more sustainable business model for the industry. We expect some consolidation to take place in the television media space. Creation of MediaPro Enterprise is one step in that direction, which will help develop the pay revenue stream for the industry. New content formats, like HD and 3D, are being experimented with and will likely open up new revenue streams for the broadcasters."
 

Programming and operating cost for the quarter saw a 27.5 per cent rise to Rs 3.05 billion, from Rs 2.39 billion a year ago. Employee cost rose 53.2 per cent over the earlier year. Selling & other expenses for the quarter stood at Rs 1.25 billion, increasing by 55.1 per cent over the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. Total costs incurred by the company rose 36.5 per cent to Rs 4.90 billion.

Overall, programming and operating cost in the quarter rose 12.2 per cent to Rs 3.42 billion compared to Rs 3.05 billion a year ago. Employee cost increased by 25.1 per cent over the year-ago period. Selling & other expenses in the quarter were flat at Rs 1.25 billion, as compared to the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. 

This includes additional one-time expense on marketing and rebranding exercise undertaken during this quarter. Total costs incurred by the company in this quarter stood at Rs 5.42 billion, showing an increase of 10.7 per cent over the corresponding period last fiscal.