Muted Q1 performance for listed media majors

Polls, cricket, lack of big-budget movies hit broadcasters' showing

- RAM PRASAD SAHU

A cricket-heavy calendar, lack of big-budget movie releases, and elections weighed on listed media majors in the broadcasting and movie exhibition space during the first quarter of the financial year 2024-25 (FY25).

Barring Sun TV, which has outperformed the broader markets as well as the benchmarks with a return of 26 per cent over the last three months, returns for PVR Inox - six per cent and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) - flatover this period are nothing to write home about. The advertising space in Q1FY25 was marked by IPL matches in April and May, the T20 World Cup in June and election-related ad spends. FMCG ad spending slowed down in June, Balaji Subramanian and Siddharth Zabak of IIFL Research said. It was due to an erratic monsoon and in anticipation of the Union Budget. Zee and Sun may see muted ad revenue growth, as they are under-indexed in the sports and news genres.

ICICI Securities too believes that advertising revenues are likely to remain soft for general entertainment content (GEC) broadcasters in Q1FY25, given the strongest cricket season in a quarter in recent memory and Lok Sabha polls helping news channels take away additional wallet share. However, overall advertising spends continued to increase sequentially, said Abhisek Banerjee and Jayram Shetty of the brokerage.