Dish TV may break even before target

The country's leading direct-to-home (DTH) telecast firm, Dish TV, hopes to start showing a positive net revenue within the current quarter. This will be a first for any DTH player, industry sources say.

"We will turn EBITDA-positive within the current, or at the most within the next quarter, much ahead of our targets," Jawahar Goel, managing director, told Business Standard. EBITDA is net of operating revenue over expenses, before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation allocations Dish TV is in its sixth year of operation.

Presently, say experts, every player in the DTH sector makes losses on almost every connection sold. According to Media Partners Asia's recent report, the combined losses for the DTH sector is set to cross Rs 2,000 crore in 2008-09. "Being EBITDA-positive for a DTH company means that it has managed to streamline its expenses. It is a positive sign," an observer said.

Dish TV expects to close the 2008-09 fiscal, in which it crossed the five million subscriber mark, with a total revenue upwards of about Rs 700 crore, nearly 70 per cent more than the 2007-08 fiscal. Dish hopes to curtail its losses to about Rs 430 crore or thereabout in 2008-09, almost the same level as in the last fiscal, says Goel.

The losses are incurred by all DTH players as a result of providing subsidised hardware to consumers. Dish has set aggressive targets for 2009-10. It aims to add another 2.5 million subscribers, to take the gross subscriber base to over 7.5 million subscribers.

The company is also looking at additional revenue through carriage fees and advertising generated on the clean-feed of select foreign channels. "I expect the carriage fees to contribute about Rs 50 crore to our revenue, up from Rs 25 crore this fiscal. Additionally, I plan to put advertisements on the clean-feed of select foreign channels and earn revenue from that, too," said Goel.