ZEEL sees sharp recovery in ad revenues post lockdown; up 7.5% in Q3 FY21

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd’s (ZEEL) domestic advertising revenue for the quarter grew by 7.5% YoY and 43.6% QoQ; a sharp recovery post H1 reflects the rebound in consumer demand and spending.

Consolidated revenue grew by 33.2% to Rs 27,293 million; excluding content syndication deal of Rs 5,512 million, revenue grew by 6.3%. The syndicated content had an inventory value of Rs 4,730 million, which was amortised during the quarter.

Underlying EBITDA (excluding content syndication revenue and cost) stood at Rs. 6,375 million, while the EBITDA margin stood at 29.3%.

Domestic subscription revenue grew by 9.3% on a like-to-like basis driven by both television and ZEE5. Reported growth of 18% includes revenue from music business, which has been reclassified as subscription revenue in this fiscal.

ZEEL reported 18.2% all India viewership share in Q3, and continues to be strong #2 TV entertainment network in India. While TV viewership reverted to the pre-COVID-19 level, movie genre’s share dropped due to lack of new movie releases. Meanwhile, network share declined due to FTA channels losing share and decline in overall Hindi movie genre.

ZEEL launched two new channels during the quarter – Zee Zest (lifestyle) and Zee Vajwa (Marathi music) – taking the network channel count to 47, and making it 6 new channels in the last 14 months.

ZEE5

ZEE5, the OTT platform from ZEEL, reported Q3 FY2021 revenue at Rs 1,178 million, while EBITDA was reported at Rs 1,757 million. ZEE5’s monthly active users (MAU) stood at 65.9 million, while daily active users (DAU) stood at 5.4 million in December 2020.

ZEE5 released 7 movies on ‘Pay Per View’ model and 20 Originals during the quarter.

Zee Studios released 'Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari' in theatres, the first Hindi movie to be released in theatres after COVID-19 struck.