Balaji Telefilms to exploit huge opportunity in digital: Shobha Kapoor

Balaji Telefilms has reported growth across all parameters and significant improvement in business performance. The company has reported a strong revenue growth for the year, with FY20 revenue at Rs 77 crore, compared to Rs 41 crore in FY19. The media house also saw an EBITDA turnaround – with FY20 EBITDA at Rs 11 crore vis-a-vis a loss of Rs 105 crore in FY19.

Revenue was up 34 per cent to Rs 574 crore, as against Rs 428 crore and gross margin expansion.

BTL TV Business had a very strong performance – Rs 88 crore of EBITDA vis-a-vis Rs 21 crore in FY19.

Movie business, too, had a very strong performance for the year with 3 releases. Driven by pre-sales strategy, Balaji Telefilms’ movie business reported EBITDA at Rs 37 crore, against a loss of Rs 7 crore in FY19. COVID-19 has impacted the theatrical release of movies, so the company has completed the direct-to-digital releases for one of its movies and is evaluating options for the others. ‘Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare’ will premiere on Netflix.

Balaji Telefilms reported a healthy cash balance, with investment in Bank FD and Mutual Funds of Rs 163 crore and short term working capital in movies of Rs 76 crore, taking the total balance to Rs 239 crore.

Balaji Telefilms’ TV content production had a strong year, with 823 hours of programming at an average realisation of Rs 0.37 crore/ hour. Shows continue to dominate the ratings, making Balaji Telefilms the #1 ranked production house.

ALTBalaji continues to be a leader in the original Hindi SVOD space, the platform today has 62 shows. The content alliance with ZEE5 has been live for half the year and is driving growth for both partners. ALTBalaji is well positioned to minimize cash burn and develop a profitable and scalable, direct-to-consumer business. COVID-19 has hastened digital adoption, and ALTBalaji today dominates the mass OTT market. Direct subscription revenue has grown over 100 per cent year on year.

Shobha Kapoor, Managing Director, Balaji Telefilms, commented, “This year has been one of the best years for Balaji Telefilms despite the partial impact of COVID-19 towards the end of March 2020. We continue to focus on creating good content and growing our digital platform. We are witnessing huge opportunity within the digital space due to COVID-19 and we are gearing ourselves to exploit this opportunity.”