Dish TV Q2 FY2020 subscription revenues at Rs 7,920 million

Dish TV India has reported consolidated unaudited subscription revenues of Rs 7,920 million Q2 FY2020 and operating revenues of Rs 8,932 million. EBITDA for the quarter stood at Rs 5,205 million.

Financial performance during the quarter was a mixed bag with the EBITDA margin strengthening further, while absolute revenues and EBITDA remained on the softer side. 

Subscription revenues for the quarter stood at Rs 7,920 million. Prolonged monsoon resulted in recharge delays impacting subscription revenues for the quarter. The absence of big ticket sporting events like the Cricket World Cup also impacted subscription revenues and churn reported during the second quarter, as compared to the previous quarter. There were 42,000 net subscriber additions during the quarter. Total net subscriber base at the end of the quarter was 23.94 million. 

EBITDA for the quarter was Rs 5,205 million, with a strong EBITDA margin of 58.3 per cent. H1 FY20 EBITDA added up to Rs 10,565 million. 

Building on its Strengths 

The seasonally weak second quarter came bundled with other external challenges this time. Slowing subscriber additions due to a not so robust macro-economic environment, price undercutting by peers, along with heavy rains and flooding in many parts of the country made subscriber acquisitions and retention a challenging task. 

“Setting aside the price undercutting resorted to by some peers in parts of the country, Dish TV India maintained a fine balance between subscriber acquisition and the cost of such acquisition. The company intentionally avoided adding extremely value conscious subscribers,” said Anil Dua, Group CEO, Dish TV India. 

Widening the portfolio of offering for its subscribers, Dish TV India launched its Smart Connected Devices comprising of the Dish SMRT Hub Android set-top box and Dish SMRT Kit – a voice enabled dongle with an Amazon Alexa powered remote across 20 selected locations in the country. The company aims to address a 5 million market for the Dish SMRT Kit, along with virtually the entire market of broadband connected houses with the Dish SMRT Hub. 

“The company, in a bid to elevate the festive fervour, launched special combos and exciting offers catering to the needs of customers across various segments. The new festive packages have been designed keeping in mind the diverse choice of content across various segments and should further strengthen our base across the country,” Dua added. 

Consultation Paper on New Tariff Order Related Issues 

The intent and objective of the New Tariff Order, apart from providing a level playing field for all stakeholders in the television space, was to provide choice to the consumers. Amongst other issues, the New Tariff Order aimed at removing the anomaly related to indirect forcing of unwanted channels to consumers instead of providing a choice of a la-carte. 

TRAI’s recent floatation of a Consultation Paper on Tariff Related Issues for Broadcasting and Cable Services seems to take stock of the real world implementation of the Tariff Order and the glaring issues that have continued to exist in the New Regime. 

Dish TV India welcomed the Authority for undertaking this exercise and while submitting its response to the Consultation hoped for a linkage between the prices of bouquets and its constituent channels as provided in one of the clauses of the Tariff Order. 

The Company strongly believes that the Regulation should be implemented in entirety and subscribers should not end up paying for unwanted channels. 

Jawahar Goel, CMD, Dish TV India, said, “It is evident that even in the New Regime, there has been a propensity to push low rated channels into bouquets with the objective of increasing the viewership of high rated channels. If the Regulation gets implemented in entirety, there would be better pricing that would ensure wider consumption of channels. Content would be subject to subscriber’s filtration and as a distributor we would only be procuring popular content that sells.”