India’s Zee Entertainment Enterprises recently suffered its first loss in three years. Advertisers had reduced their marketing budgets, causing total income to decline by 9.9% to 21.26 billion rupees. Expenses also shot up, leading to the company recording a consolidated net loss of 1.96 billion rupees for the fourth quarter ending March 31.
A slowdown in ad spending was blamed for domestic advertisement revenue dropping by 10% during the quarter. Zee also withdrew funding from tech startup SugarBox due to inflation and conditions for an impending merger with Sony Group Corp’s India unit. As a result, Zee experienced difficulty with creditors, though it settled the issue in March. However, recent reports of a ruling by India’s regulator against an entity of Essel Group, which owns Zee, may force the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange to reconsider their approvals of the merger. Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida said the company is aiming to complete the merger by the end of the fiscal year.
Zee’s results paled in comparison to TV Today Network Ltd, New Delhi Television Ltd, and TV18 Broadcast Ltd, which all reported a drop in profits between 76% and 98% in the quarter. Shares of Zee were down 1.08% ahead of the earnings and 11.6% in the March quarter.
The company mentioned in this article is Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It is an Indian media company that is a subsidiary of Essel Group. The company engages in television broadcasting, film production, and digital content creation. It owns several leading television channels such as Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zee Marathi, and Zee Tamil.
The person mentioned in this article is Kenichiro Yoshida, CEO of Sony Group which looks to merge with the India unit of Zee Entertainment Enterprises. Yoshida is the third president and CEO of Sony Corporation, which is headquartered in Tokyo. He has held various leadership roles since joining Sony in 1983 and was appointed president in April 2018. He successfully led the company’s transition towards higher growth sectors such as gaming, semiconductors, and entertainment. Yoshida is committed to make Sony a more digital-first and customer-focused company.
