 "Sun TV profit up by 16% in Q4")
According to Sun TV's annual report, the company's founder and executive chairman Maran and his wife Kavery Kalanithi, who is an executive director in the company, earned salaries of Rs 13.14 crore each during the year 2015-16. While the salary level remained flat, ex-gratia/bonus rose to Rs 58.33 crore from Rs 48.13 crore for Maran and to Rs 58.32 crore from Rs 48.12 crore in Kavery's case.
Maran, who founded the Sun TV group in 1993, earned a dividend of Rs 458.12 crore in 2015-16 against Rs 399.02 crore a year earlier.
The salary of the company's managing director & chief executive officer, K Vijaykumar, rose to Rs 82 lakh from Rs 61 lakh, while chief financial officer V C Unnikrishnan's salary rose to Rs 81 lakh from Rs 73 lakh. Company secretary and compliance officer R Ravi's salary rose to Rs 20 lakh form Rs 17 lakh.
Business
Sun TV's total income in 2015-2016 stood at Rs 2,493.30 crore as against Rs 2,331.45 crore, a year ago, while profit after tax was Rs 867.25 crore (Rs 737.23 crore).
The company said the drive initiated by the Centre towards digitalisation and addressability for cable television would help Sun TV Network, largest regional television network, to become a major beneficiary of the recent growth in the DTH space. The new stream of revenue for the company arising from the increased DTH subscriber base in southern India is expected to maintain a positive momentum in the coming years.
Research from Kotak stated that the Sun group's ad revenue declined 2.7 per cent y-o-y despite a 16 per cent growth in ad revenues posted by the flagship channel, Sun TV. This implies a 30-35 per cent decline in non-Tamil GECs as against its expectation of a 10 per cent decline in view of viewership loss.
Sun TV's management indicated that ad revenues declined 2.7 per cent y-o-y led by a four per cent decline in ad revenues of its GECs. Yields were up 12-14 per cent implying 15 per cent-plus decline in volumes. Among GEC's flagship channel, Sun TV reported 16 per cent y-o-y growth in ad revenues.
Cable and DTH subscription revenues grew by 37 per cent and 14 per cent yoy, ahead of expectations. Programming costs and movie amortization costs declined two per cent and 22 per cent y-o-y supporting profitability. IPL business loss narrowed to Rs 31.8 crore from Rs 56.6 crore, due to the title win in the recent IPL season.
"Overall, operating performance was good with the exception of ad revenues from non-Tamil markets which we believe have bottomed out," said in the report adding that it expect Sun's ad revenue growth to improve starting third quarter.
IPL business
The revenue from its Indian Premier League franchise Sun Risers Hyderabad has increased to Rs 144.04 crore in the quarter, as against Rs 96.55 crore during the quarter ended June 30, 2015, with an increase of 49.2 per cent. However, the cost in the franchise has also gone up to Rs 175.84 crore during the quarter, as against Rs 153.16 crore during the same quarter of last year.
Sun TV's IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad has won the recently concluded IPL (season 9)
Company's IPL business is expected to break even starting Fiscal 2019.
Sun's IPL franchise incurred a loss of Rs 31.8 crore in 1QFY17 as against Rs 56.6 crore in 1Q last year. Improvement would be due to Sunrisers Hyderabad's title win in the recently concluded IPL (season 9).
The management indicated that it expects significant reduction in license fee for IPL starting FY2019 on renewal of contracts as it moves from fixed fee to 20 per cent revenue share. Additionally, it expects higher net inflow from BCCI of Rs 50 crore as broadcasting contracts are renewed at significantly higher rates.
