ZEELNSEQ4FY22June 3, 2022

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited

5,813words
80turns
11analyst exchanges
3executives
Management on call
Punit Goenka
Managing Director and CEO
Rohit Gupta
Chief Financial Officer
Mahesh Pratap Singh
Head Investor Relations
Key numbers — 15 extracted
1.5 billion
on to this/ one is since the bidding is happening now at a time when we havenlt yet received the $1.5 billion capital injection} does the current balance sheet allow us to bid for IPL at all in the first pla
7%
on television in the category, followed by all the others that you named will be in the range of 7% to 8% each whereas FMCG will be more in the 53%-54% range. That remains pretty much stable as of
8%
levision in the category, followed by all the others that you named will be in the range of 7% to 8% each whereas FMCG will be more in the 53%-54% range. That remains pretty much stable as of now. O
53%
he others that you named will be in the range of 7% to 8% each whereas FMCG will be more in the 53%-54% range. That remains pretty much stable as of now. Of cburse, we've seen a lot of advertising
54%
others that you named will be in the range of 7% to 8% each whereas FMCG will be more in the 53%-54% range. That remains pretty much stable as of now. Of cburse, we've seen a lot of advertising comi
750 crore
line of Ankur Periwal from Axis Capital. Ankur Periwal: Two questions, first on ZEE5, with the 750 crores EBITDA loss and 550 odd crores revenues for the full year FY22, can you help us on breakup of th
1300 crore
revenue how much is coming from advertisement how much from subscription? And similarly, almost 1300 crores of costs, so broad breakup between the core content and the other overheads. Punit Goenka: T
70%
up the lion's share of the cost. Ankur Periwal: Will it be fair to say content will be probably 70%+ here, if you can give or maybe +/- 5% is okay? Punit Goenka: No, J can't give you that number
5%
Periwal: Will it be fair to say content will be probably 70%+ here, if you can give or maybe +/- 5% is okay? Punit Goenka: No, J can't give you that number but rest assured that that content is t
17%
pretty strong outlook there in terms of content investment. TV again market share stabilizing at 17% but as you mentioned Hindi-Tamil etc. languages Marathi, you'll be investing there. Movies again
Rs. 250 crore
large investment and it has given us a significant return and like I said it crossed more than Rs. 250 crores. Ifs not always that only big budget movies are giving us returns. Even small budget movies when
rs,
have a large focus on these markets like Tamil and Marathi and as you know with our Marathi viewers, we were leaders for about 6 to 7 years and now we have obviously lost a leadership there but of co
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Guidance — 20 items
Pun it Goenka
qa
We are evaluating our options as to what is the best strategy for the company going forward.
Sanjesh Jain
qa
What will be the investment on movies and music put together?
Rohit Gupta
qa
We expect that now that the cinemas have reopened, we see that this will go on.
Rohit Gupta
qa
We expect that we will do more than 20-25 movies in this year as well.
Rohit Gupta
qa
And whatever monetization that we see in Quarter 1 that will be reflected in Quarter 1 results.
Pun it Goenka
qa
FMCG still continues to be the highest spender on television in the category, followed by all the others that you named will be in the range of 7% to 8% each whereas FMCG will be more in the 53%-54% range.
Sachin Salgaonkar
qa
We Punit are already 2 months into the next quarter and any color in terms of how things are moving in terms of, is basically the mix is same and are we seeing some massive curtailment across the board?
Ankur Periwal
qa
Will it be fair to say content will be probably 70%+ here, if you can give or maybe +/- 5% is okay?
Ankur Periwal
qa
Second part here, on your commentary that FY23 EBITDA margins or let's say FY22 EBITDA will be bottoming out here and the margins should improve.
Ankur Periwal
qa
Unable to understand the math here because on the revenue side first half will be slightly soft.
Risks & concerns — 6 flagged
So, what's essentially delaying the approval from exchanges which should not and does this mean that the original timeline of 8 to 9 months is at risk now and should one be expecting more like 12 months from the day of announcement?
Jay Doshi
Firstly, very difficult for me to comment on what's the reason for the delays.
Punit Goenka
But you ar~ right that so far, the decline has been because we have been losing subscribers.
Punit Goenka
But if I look at our viewership share it has been on a constant decline over the last three quarters.
Jinesh Joshi
Secondly also it was mentioned that because of FTA headwinds au r subscription revenue is under pressure.
Jinesh Joshi
That tends to be quite volatile on quarterly basis and this quarter it was quite low, almost similar to the pre-COVID quarters.
Yogesh Kirve
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Q&A — 11 exchanges
Q
I have a couple of questions. First one is on the IPL rights tender. There were media reports that highlighted that the rights are being split and of course the bidding is on 12th of June. I have a couple of questions in connection to this/ one is since the bidding is happening now at a time when we havenlt yet received the $1.5 billion capital injection} does the current balance sheet allow us to bid for IPL at all in the first place? That's the first question. The second one is related to IPL. The second one is, the rights • Q4fV22 Earnings Cail Transcript May 26, 2022 are also being split a
Pun it Goenka
Your first question on our ability to participate in the IPL tender, on our own, fully we can participate on our own. We have a very healthy balance sheet with zero debt and certainly, we have the qualifications to participate in the tender. In terms of your second question on the 'deal is being split by genres or by platforms. Yes, you're right. That's what the speculation is, but it doesn't preclude us from bidding for either part or all. We are evaluating our options as to what is the best strategy for the company going forward. You will hear about that shortly after the bidding is over. On
Q
Thanks Punit. Sanjesh, so we have already stepped up our investments in FY22. The point I made in my opening remarks is that these investments will continue in content technology and on the key markets that we have outlined Hindi, Tamil and Marathi. Q4fY22 Earnillgs Call Transcript May 26,2022 These investments both in content will continue, we'll also in marketing will continue but like Punit mentioned, we will not let our margins deteriorate for FY23.
Sanjesh Jain
What will be the investment on movies and music put together? We already said we are scaling up and we have a reasonable, good slate planned for FY23. We expect that now that the cinemas have reopened, we see that this will go on. We expect that we will do more than 20-25 movies in this year as well. The number on the movie side is already issued in the presentation that would have beensent to all of you. Just one last bookkeeping question, In this quarter what was the movie revenue and the cost which has been recognized in the P&L? In Q4FY 22 we had movies like Kashmir Files and few other mov
Q
11m sorry if this was addressed in the opening remarks. My question is around merger timeline, back in December~January we were expecting exchange approvals in 2 to 3 months and it's almost 5 months but approvals are still awaited. So, what's essentially delaying the approval from exchanges which should not and does this mean that the original timeline of 8 to 9 months is at risk now and should one be expecting more like 12 months from the day of announcement? Q4FY22 Earnings Call Transcript Mal' 26, 2022
Punit Goenka
Firstly, very difficult for me to comment on what's the reason for the delays. I think the stock exchanges don't give us that answer very easily. But my speculation is that because this is a very large merger there has been significant amount of queries that we have been answering to the stock exchanges. As of two weeks back or 10 days back we have satisfied all of their query and nothing further has come to us. We are hoping that the process should be smoothly done now. I'm still positively inclined towards the 8 to 9 months timeline that we had talked about at that point in time.
Q
There is no significant change in this thing ad spending quantum 5achin. FMCG still continues to be the highest spender on television in the category, followed by all the others that you named will be in the range of 7% to 8% each whereas FMCG will be more in the 53%-54% range. That remains pretty much stable as of now. Of cburse, we've seen a lot of advertising coming from the new age businesses on the digital platforms which generally is low on television but we are starting to see that coming on the digital platforms. Though small still but the advertiser list is expanding as we speak.
Sachin Salgaonkar
We Punit are already 2 months into the next quarter and any color in terms of how things are moving in terms of, is basically the mix is same and are we seeing some massive curtailment across the board? There have been cuts across the board and especially in the FMCG sector. But I can tell you this much that we are tracking the industry numbers and we are pretty much in line with them or ahead of them. 5achin 5algaonkar: Got it. Second question wanted to understand your thoughts on ZEES losses. We've seen some good revenue growth but your losses continued to remain high. We are already seeing
Q
Two questions, first on ZEE5, with the 750 crores EBITDA loss and 550 odd crores revenues for the full year FY22, can you help us on breakup of the revenue how much is coming from advertisement how much from subscription? And similarly, almost 1300 crores of costs, so broad breakup between the core content and the other overheads.
Punit Goenka
This is highly sensitive information Ankur. We can't share that granular detail so early right now. But let me share with you that the revenue is largely subscription led currently, not so much advertising led. On the cost front, we have three large buckets of cost which is content, marketing and technology. These are the three things that make up the lion's share of the cost. Will it be fair to say content will be probably 70%+ here, if you can give or maybe +/- 5% is okay? No, J can't give you that number but rest assured that that content is the biggest cost. Yes. Where I was coming from wa
Q
I have a question on our movie acquisition strategy on the digital side. For instance, we have RRR on ZEES now and given that this would have been high priced asset for us; how do we analyze the success and failure of such decisions? Basically, what I want to know is that what kind of metrics do we use to calculate ROI of such assets and then internally decide that yes, this has clicked for us or not. So that's the broad question?
Punit Goenka
The three metrics we evaluate this one. One is that how many new subscribers did this piece of content get us, who were not paying for my subscription and have come out to our platform and watch this as a first piece of content because that is our metric to determine, this is the trigger for them to buy the subscription. Second trigger for this thing is of my total subscriber base, how many people c"onsume that content which means that acts as a retention tool for me and third is how many people actually completed the content because it has engaging enough or not, did I make the right purchase
Q
My first question is basically on ZEES. One good thing is that the investment into the tech cost which has led to a better UI but any kind of change in the content strategy there because you are making close to 70-80 shows every year but do you have any plans to kind of make fourto five marquee shows we can have a good franchise value and a good recall value and probably be very high in terms of budget as well. So, any plans of regional content size for ZEES?
Rohit Gupta
Yes, Karan so you're right. We have been investing in content and technology in ZEES and even in content we have a content strategy where we are looking at user preferences. We are looking at what kind of shows are doing well. We also looking at apart from Hindi investments in regional shows. There are definitely some very • Q4fY22 Earnings Call Transcript May 26, 2022 marquee content that we plan to bring out in FY23 not only in Hindi but also in regional and I must say that some of our regional shows in past quarter have done well and that has given us the confidence to invest in the regiona
Q
If I look at your admin cost was getting structured on the other expenses. That tends to be quite volatile on quarterly basis and this quarter it was quite low, almost similar to the pre-COVID quarters. Any sense for what was balance savings during the quarter and any sort of a ballpark gUidance or indication regarding what should be this figure on annualized basis? Call
Rohit Gupta
I think see more or less the admin cost has remained stable. Last year due to pandemic we had obviously made changes. But I think this year, this quarter specifically there is a CSR provision that we have made which is part of the admin cost. That's why probably there's a phasing that you can see. My question here is that most probably non-COVID quarters, the cost used to be Rs. 170 to 200 crores and this quarter is Rs. 146 crares. My question is more on why it was so low during this quarter? This quarter we had some reversals so there were some provisions for doubtful debts which were made in
Q
On the FTA withdrawal so given that the spends from the FMCG category is also lower and now that we are also withdrew from this category and unlikely in the short term that the subscription revenue is going to make up·for the loss in the ad revenue from the segment. Is it fair to say that we will be growing lower than the industry? • Mahesh Pratap Singh: Q4FY22 Earl'li"gs Call Transcript May 26, 2022 The FTA withdrawal has just not been isolated situation to us. Four other leading GECs have channels, have also done the same things. I think this is not specific or isolated case to us.
Rohit Gupta
Let me add here, as we had mentioned earlier in the call, we are tracking how the industry ad revenues are and this quarter as well, we will either be In line with industry or do better than industry average as far as ad revenues are concerned. But the pOint is, what I am trying to understand is this probably the FTA revenue is the margin'ai cost of this revenue is probably very low. Does it mean that the margins will be significantly lower than the '22 numbers? I already mentioned that. So right now, therels no specific guidance on any margins as such but you1re right. I mean we have taken a
Q
Of your 105 odd million MAUs how much would be direct subscribers versus subscribers through Telco deal, any rough percentage?
Rohit Gupta
So, these basically are all total subscribers and we don't actually quite frankly we don't give a split between B2B and B2C but whatev.er growth we are seeing is happening primarily in our B2C segment. These are direct subscribers coming into the platform and not through basically Telco kind of plans? like I said, the increase is happening more in the direct subscribers. Q4fY22 Earnings Call Transcript Mal' 26, 21122 Our base has both of those customer segments you alluded to but our growth is largely being driven by subscribers who are coming directly to the platform.
Q
Thanks Margaret. Thank you everyone for your interest. We hope all your questions were answered. Should you have any more queries, please feel free to reach out to us. Thank you again for joining us today and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. I will hand it over back to you Margaret to close the call.
Management
Speaking time
Rohit Gupta
16
Punit Goenka
14
Moderator
12
Ankur Periwal
6
Karan Taurani
6
Mahesh Pratap Singh
5
Pun it Goenka
3
Sanjesh Jain
3
Yogesh Kirve
3
Arun Prakash
3
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