Mumbai: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd said its second-quarter profit rose 17.5% to Rs187.69 crore from a year earlier. Total income rose 33.8% in the three months ended 30 September to Rs953.50 crore.
“General business sentiments are expected to turn positive following a slew of reforms announced by the government, including fuel price reforms, relaxing FDI (foreign direct investment) norms in retail, aviation and broadcasting, revival of disinvestment process,” said Subhash Chandra, chairman of Zee Entertainment. “The move to increase foreign direct investment limits in the television distribution space will allow increased access to capital for roll out of digitization.”
The implementation of the digitization process will benefit the “television ecosystem”, he said.
The government has mandated that television should be distributed across the country through digital signals, phasing out analogue signals. This will start in the country’s biggest cities on 1 November and proceed nationwide in stages.
During the quarter, Zee Entertainment launched a Bengali movie channel, Zee Bangla Cinema, increasing its footprint in the regional broadcasting space. As part of the company’s international growth strategy, it launched an Arabic general entertainment channel. Zee Alwan, during the quarter.
Shares of Zee Entertainment ended down 0.93% to Rs192.05 on BSE on Friday.
