ZEEL Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL) reported a 604 per cent growth in its consolidated profit after tax (PAT) in the first quarter ended on June 30th. The Operating Revenue of the company registered 35.3 percent growth. The EBITDA stood at 56.4 percent growth.
Lockdowns impacted domestic ad revenues for both Q1FY22 and Q1FY21. However, the impact this year was much lower, reflected in 127.9% YoY growth. Compared to Q1FY20, domestic ad revenues were lower by 22.7%. As per the company statement, Embargo on pricing change due to NTO 2.0 litigation continued to hurt domestic television pay revenue growth. The 2% growth over Q1FY21 is driven primarily by digital business. The drop in revenue is on account of a large movie syndication deal in the previous year.
The programming cost increased YoY as original content production largely continued across the states during the lockdown at alternate locations. An increase in marketing cost on a YoY basis is on account of the release of Radhe and continued investments in ZEE5. Marketing costs in Q1FY21 were lower on account of much lower original content production. Lower ad revenues on the one hand and an increase in costs due to lockdown (Rs. 271mn) on the other affected EBITDA for the quarter.
With lockdowns in most states, TV viewership again jumped during the quarter, though lower than Q1 of last year. Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, and Hindi movies continue strong performance. Zee TV, Zee Marathi, and Zee Tamil performances were soft during the quarter.
The network share dropped due to lockdown disruption and soft performance in some markets. Q1 Revenue and EBITDA of the company stood at Rs.1,117mn and Rs. (2,033mn) . ZEEL released 11 original shows and movies released during the quarter.
80%+ YoY growth in YouTube video views, highlighting the strength of ZMC music catalog and library. ZMC added ~3mn subscribers on YouTube; with 75mn+ subscribers, it is the second most subscribed Indian music channel on YouTube.