The Gautam Adani-owned New Delhi Television (NDTV) on Monday reported a 97.5% fall in net profit (attributable to owners) to Rs 59 lakh for the quarter ended March 31 (Q4FY23), as the media firm incurred one-time expenses due to severance pay and write-offs, which hurt its bottomline. The company reported a net profit of Rs 24.16 crore a year ago.The media firm’s revenue from operations also took a hit, falling 35.5% to Rs 67 crore in Q4 against Rs 104 crore a year ago.
The company attributed its weak results to an overall sluggish economy and a slowdown in advertising spends.The NDTV stock closed trade 4.24% higher at Rs 189.45 apiece on Friday on the BSE. The markets were closed on Monday due to Maharashtra Day. NDTV shares were up 3% in the last one week, ahead of the results on Monday.NDTV results were also in focus on Monday because it is among the first quarterly earnings by the Adani group after a report by US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research on January 24 this year triggered a sell-off in the shares of the ports-to-power conglomerate.
The Ahmedabad-based group had subsequently raised its stake in NDTV through an open offer, before finally buying out much of the stake held by the Roys in the company. The Roys currently retain a 5% minority stake in NDTV.On Monday, Adani group chairman Gautam Adani said that it would further bolster NDTV with world-class infrastructure and talent. “The aim is to transform NDTV into a thriving multi-platform global news organisation,” he said.
In November, Adani had described his takeover of NDTV as a “responsibility” rather than a “business opportunity” in an interview to the Financial Times. He had also said that he had invited Prannoy Roy to remain as chair of the company, which he had declined.Since the exit of the Roys, however, NDTV has lost many senior executives of the leadership team including Suparna Singh, who was the group president of the company; Arijit Singh, who was the chief strategy officer and Kawaljit Singh Bedi, who was the chief technology and product officer.Senior journalists such as Ravish Kumar, Sreenivasan Jain and Nidhi Razdan have also exited the company in the last few months.