Thanks, Sagar. Hello, everyone.

Welcome to our Q1 FY '27 earnings discussion. We hope you have had an opportunity to review the results.

We have with us today our CEO, Mr. Punit Goenka, along with senior management team.

We will start with the opening remarks from Mr. Goenka, followed by commentary on operating and financial performance by Mr.

Mukund Galgali, our Deputy CEO and CFO. Subsequently, we will open the floor for question-and-answer session.

Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that some of the statements made or discussed on today's conference call will be forward-looking in nature and must be viewed in conjunction with risks and uncertainties we face. The company does not undertake to update any of these forward-looking statements publicly.

With that said, I will now hand the call over to PG for his remarks. Thank you.

Thank you, Ankit. Good evening, everyone.

It is my pleasure to connect with all of you today as we discuss your company's performance in the first quarter of the new financial year. I will also speak about the key strategic growth levers embedded into the business that will translate into meaningful business outcomes in the quarters to come.

Let me commence with the quarter gone by. The subdued macroeconomic sentiment from the previous fiscal flowed into the first quarter, impacting the industry at large.

The continued volatility in West Asia resulted in inflationary pressures that affected the spending patterns of advertisers. Amidst this environment, your company remained resilient to navigate the challenges and maintain a sharp focus on strengthening its foundation for the future.

To give you context, your company implemented strategic steps to expand into newer avenues that will enable it to unlock the growth opportunities required to fortify its competitive advantage going forward. In line with this approach, we took certain conscious, yet confident steps while foraying into the sports business.

The launch of United 8 Sports channels marks an important step in our journey to enhance consumer engagement through a curated portfolio of emerging and high-potential sports properties. Our approach is to maintain a balanced focus on long-term value creation and financial sustainability.

For us, value delivery will take precedence over pursuing expensive properties, enabling us to build a differentiated and sustainable offering. In line with this approach, your company secured the rights for key global football properties including FIFA, Bundesliga, and Serie A.

I must mention that the recently concluded FIFA World Cup 2026 performed exceptionally well on your company's linear and digital platforms, reaching over 400 million consumers in India. The tournament provided a strong fillip to both segments, attracting millions of viewers.

Now speaking about our digital business, ZEE5 continued to display profitable growth for the third consecutive quarter, attaining a 58% increase in revenue year-on-year. In order to propel this positive momentum further, ZEE5 recently unveiled a multilingual content slate encompassing a bold showcase of stories and formats across movies, original series, live sports, AI-powered storytelling, animation, and kids entertainment.

With a compelling mix of offerings, the platform remains well-positioned to achieve higher growth in the future. The robust content strategy implemented across key businesses continued to display positive results.

On the linear side, your company achieved an all-time high network share of 20% during the quarter. I am pleased to share that our flagship Hindi channel Zee TV is gaining ground, fortifying its position in the entertainment landscape.

It has been a leader in primetime for over 32 consecutive weeks, reflecting the growing resonance of the new shows with our viewers. The language channels are also displaying a strong growth momentum by maintaining a firm leadership position across the respective markets.

Advertisement revenue during the quarter remained muted, primarily due to external headwinds. That said, it remains a critical priority for us as the team is investing the required time and energy to gain traction.

On the subscription revenue front, we reported a 16% year-on-year growth that largely stems from the performance of the digital platforms. Our movies and music business are also growing at a steady pace quarter-on-quarter, driving strong synergies with our other business segments.

Your company is also bolstering its presence across other key strategic initiatives, including micro-dramas, kids entertainment, live events, VFX, and animation that have immense potential to boost your company's growth. Even as we continue to strengthen the core capabilities, your company is building a diversified portfolio of strategic growth segments that complements our existing strengths and gives us a robust competitive advantage.

Overall, we are witnessing a marginal recovery in the macroeconomic environment, and we remain optimistic of stronger greenshoots in the upcoming festive season. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our esteemed shareholders for placing their trust in our abilities and approving the resolutions put forth by the company at the recently held Extraordinary General Meeting.

One of your company's strongest pillars is its human capital, and I remain confident that the truly, truly yours Employee Stock Option Plan approved by the shareholders will further enable the team to truly function as co-owners of this precious institution and achieve newer heights. On that note, I would request Mukund to take you through the performance numbers in detail, and I look forward to interacting with you all during the Q&A session later.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Punit. Good evening to everyone.

Thank you for taking the time out to join us this evening to discuss the company's performance during the first quarter of the financial year 2026-27. We have also uploaded the financial results and a presentation on our corporate website as well as the stock exchange portals.

In my remarks today, I will focus more on providing context to our performance during the quarter and will also share our outlook. In June 2026, in line with our strategic approach to establish a strong presence across high-potential growth segments and invest in upcoming sports, the company partnered with FIFA to bring the world's biggest football property and secured digital and broadcasting rights for various FIFA events until 2034 for the Indian market.

This made the company emerge as one of the most powerful sports destinations for the youth. This year, despite the odd hours of FIFA matches in India, around 83% of the overall FIFA viewership was live on ZEE5, and total reach exceeded 400 million across all platforms.

Coming now to our digital business, during the quarter, we released 38 shows and movies, including 15 original shows. This enhanced content offering across seven languages, coupled with a revised pricing strategy on FIFA 2026, ZEE5 witnessed continued growth momentum.

Revenue grew 58% year-on-year in Quarter 1 to 4,571 million. Further, we continued to invest for future growth by increasing our marketing spends in Bullet, which has a huge potential in capturing the attention of new-age consumers.

We also accelerated our marketing spends behind FIFA to drive subscriber growth. Despite the above-mentioned investments, the digital business delivered EBITDA of 44 million during the quarter.

The underlying unit economics of the business is intact, and we expect the digital growth momentum to continue in Q2 as well, as we further accrue gains on account of FIFA. Moving to subscription revenues, it registered a 16% year-on-year growth, as Punit mentioned, primarily driven by a higher ARPU and growth in subscribers in our digital business, and increased pricing in our linear business.

In our broadcast business, the overall linear TV landscape continues to remain stable. We continue to maintain our position as India's strong number two TV entertainment network.

The company's flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV continues to chart a robust growth trajectory and maintains its primetime leadership in Hindi-speaking markets. The channel has further cemented its position with its fiction shows Ganga Mai Ki Betiyan, Vasudha, Tum Se Tum Tak occupying the top three spots in the genre.

In the movie genre, Zee Cinema consolidated the crown as the leading channel with a viewership of 27% in week 22. The growth was driven by world television premieres of popular films, including Akhanda 2, Tandavam, Kishkindhapuri, and Dil Madrasi.

Further, the language markets also continued a strong growth momentum by maintaining a robust position among the top two spots across the key regions. Additionally, in June 2026, we launched four new sports channels called United 8 to broadcast FIFA 2026 World Cup and other sports.

This, along with our engaging linear GEC content, increased our viewership share to around 20% during the quarter, making it our highest market share in the last seven years. For the quarter, it stood at 17.9%, which represents a gain of 110 basis points on a year-on-year basis.

I would like to highlight that these numbers for the quarter are only till week 24, as BARC was not allowed to publish the ratings subsequently. Further, Zee's monthly unique reach across platform continues to remain above 800 million.

The above developments reaffirm that the strategic initiatives which were implemented during the last year, especially in the content strategy, are yielding results in the right direction. Coming to advertising revenues, it declined by 11% year-on-year, largely due to the Middle East conflict severely impacting us during April and May, as the advertisers remained very cautious.

In June, there were some greenshoots which were visible post the acquisition of FIFA 2026 digital and broadcasting rights, wherein advertisers actively engaged with us to secure premium sponsorship opportunities across platforms. Moving to our music business, during the quarter, we have garnered 54 billion total video views with more than 177 million subscribers on YouTube.

This performance was driven by a new-age music catalog and a rich library of over 20,000 songs. The profitability in this business remains healthy, and we continue to diversify our catalog portfolio across language markets.

Other sales and services increased by 17% year-on-year, driven by the studio businesses. In this quarter, Zee Studios released nine movies, four in Hindi and five in other languages, which included hits like Tumbbad Chi Manjula, Rakasa, which performed well for us.

Now moving to costs and profitability, overall operating costs in Q1 FY '27 increased by 15%, primarily driven by higher advertising and publicity spends across platforms due to FIFA 2026 along with the launch of sports channels. The programming cost also increased due to an expanded content offering across platforms and investments in new strategic initiatives, including Bullet.

EBITDA for the quarter stood at 789 million, impacted by operating deleverage due to Middle East crisis impacting the advertising revenue. As a result, EBITDA margins were at 4.1%.

PAT for the quarter came in at 743 million. On the balance sheet, our focused efforts continue to strengthen our liquidity and financial position.

Cash and treasury investments as of June '26 stood at a healthy 22.1 billion, comprising of cash balance of 4.4 billion, fixed deposits and other treasury investments of 5.9 billion, and mutual fund investments of 11.8 billion. Moving through the rest of the financial year '27, with the West Asia uncertainty cooling off, we remain cautiously optimistic.

We believe that the multiple strategic initiatives implemented by the company in the recent quarters across content and continued investments along with the onset of festive season augurs well for Zee as we move ahead. With that, I would like to hand it back to Ankit.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Mukund. Sagar, we can now open the call for Q&A session.

Thank you. My first question is on FIFA and sports sub-segments.

So 10, 12 years back, when you had exited sports, that time obviously it was not profitable. In the current scenario, what will be your expectation of when it will turn profitable sustainably?

Q1, of course, FIFA was a very high revenue and viewership property, so that may not give the true picture. On a sustainable basis, when do you see profitability in this business?

Post-FIFA, if you could tell us what are other properties to engage with viewers? Last question on this will be essentially, pre-FIFA, some of the marquee brands are not present on Zee in terms of advertising.

Obviously, they came to your network in FIFA. Now post-FIFA, do you expect that they will remain on Zee, given FIFA is a very rare property, but that comes essentially in a few years only?

Abneesh. Thank you for that.

First and foremost, let me state, as I said in my opening remarks, that we are going to be very, very prudent in our approach on the sports business, and we will ensure that eventually this business will be profitable on a sustained basis for us. Going forward, if you look at, as Mukund mentioned, we have FIFA rights till 2034 and 39 properties that we had signed up for.

We have 38 more properties to go. Let's see how that plays out.

Since then, we are getting a lot of queuing up of other rights owners who are coming to us for partnering with them on similar lines. We have signed, as I just stated, Bundesliga and Serie A from the international football world.

We are working on creating a domestic calendar as well in terms of how we can have a robust sports strategy going forward. While I will not be able to give you a date right now, Abneesh, because it's still very early days, but certainly we'll approach it in the way that Zee is used to, in a very prudent and a planned manner.

Can you repeat your second question once again, please?

Essentially, some advertisers were not there on Zee pre-FIFA, the premium advertisers. Now do you think they will sustainably be on the Zee network, because once they have got good viewership on FIFA, that's good, but post that, again it is back to the current content library?

I wanted to understand that.

Abneesh, there, I think you're right. Some of the marquee advertisers may exit because they only come in for sports, but I am pretty confident that if we have the relationship and we have delivered on FIFA to them or on the sports business, some of them will certainly stay on with us as long as we continue to deliver value to them.

Yeah. One follow-up question, Punit, on sports profitability.

Versus your earlier avatar and now, world has changed. That time, subscription was very fragmented and difficult to monitor.

Second is customer has definitely become far more premium and willing to pay, and industry has become very consolidated at the front-end. Would you say that those three have made the business more viable now or that the costs are still quite high, may not make it very meaningful in terms of profitability in spite of those three changes?

I think you're absolutely right, Abneesh. Those three things have certainly contributed to the change in the entire landscape of how the sports business would be done going forward.

Second point of yours, whether the sports rights cost, yes, certainly they are high in comparison to the regular content that we are used to buying or commissioning. Having said that, if we are prudent in terms of our selection of the content, which we can look at from the audience perspective, I think it's going to be much better.

Also, I want to add that in the earlier avatar of Zee, something like football would never even reach maybe 40, 50 million viewers, whereas now we are reaching 400 million. You can say that that's because it's FIFA, but even if non-FIFA, we are able to achieve even half of that, that's still a large enough number for us to monetize and make sure that we deliver.

Understand. A

last question on the fundraising plans and growth plans, if you could update if there is further any more clarity. Firstly, congrats on getting shareholder approval this time.

Now question is you have 18-month period to do the fundraising. There is a 12-month kind of a guideline which doesn't make it possible.

Any clarification we have on that? In case you're not able to do fundraising in the first 12 months, what happens to the growth plan?

Mukund, you want to take that?

Abneesh, this is Mukund here. As far as the fundraising, we have already written to the regulator seeking clarification.

Though we have not received any response from there, we have also approached Securities Appellate Tribunal, and we have filed an appeal there. We are hopeful of a resolution of this sooner rather than later.

That is what we can update you as of now. Based on the outcome of these efforts, we will be able to determine the future course of action.

Sure. Thanks.

That's all from my side.

Thank you.

Hi, team. Good evening.

Thanks for the opportunity. I have a few questions.

Firstly on the subscription revenues, how sustainable do you believe the current trajectory is, and what are the key levers that should drive growth going forward? Here, specifically on ZEE5, ZEE5 overall revenue growth has been very strong for three consecutive quarters.

I understand part of this growth this quarter was also supported by subscriber ads around FIFA. As we move a couple of quarters ahead and the base catches up, what do you think should sustain this momentum?

Even on linear side, how do you expect to convert the high network share that we enjoy into sustained revenue growth? Any levers that you can think of that you are yet to exercise both across linear and digital?

That's my first question.

On digital side, Kavish, it's very clear that as long as we can sustainably give content to the consumer of their preference and liking, they will continue to renew their subscriptions. This is not just a FIFA-driven event.

We have seen renewal-based that has happened during FIFA or even after that, which gives us the confidence that it is quite sustainable and growable from that perspective. Advertising front is a little more challenging given the current dynamics in the market, as Mukund also talked about, the West Asia, the war situation and those things are a little bit creating uncertainties for us.

We are confident that given the fact that our market share has improved significantly and the festive season approaching us, we should be able to leverage that to our benefit.

Kavish, here,

yes,

I would just like to add on a lever that we are also looking at the international territories for growth in subscription in digital, because that so far has not been really fully utilized. We are also looking at those avenues.

A follow-up here. It's been a couple of quarters, or I think a little more than that, since we started the language packs on ZEE5.

That also coincides with the timeline when we started witnessing such high growth. In your customer base today, what proportion of your paying subscribers come on, say, a single language pack versus what we used to see earlier, which is all languages?

Just trying to understand if this has been one of the key drivers of growth here. Also on the linear TV side, subscription, any price hikes on the anvil?

Kavish, on the language packs on ZEE5 has certainly aided, but I will not be able to share numbers with you because this is highly confidential and competitive information from that perspective, but it has certainly aided. In terms of price hikes on the linear side, as you know that we are regulated by NTO, and as and when the next NTO cycle happens, which is I think February next year, we would be looking at price hikes there as well.

Understood. Second question here, Punit.

It has been a fairly long wait for us to get clarity on the music business. There have been discussions for some time around providing additional disclosures or potentially evaluating strategic actions around the business.

Where do things stand? Could you explain how the accounting and economics work across different scenarios here?

For instance, where the movie sits with, say, ZEE5, but the music rights are owned by Zee Music, there can of course be several permutations here, some clarity around how revenues and costs are allocated would be helpful.

I'll take the last question first, Kavish. As far as the music and digital, there is a robust internal transfer pricing mechanism which govern the P&Ls of the respective businesses and businesses are constantly monitoring their own costs and revenues to achieve their plans.

That is as far as the accounting aspect goes, and as far as the strategic—

Just to add to what Mukund said, that there is no free lunch. Even when ZEE5 uses music or the linear channels use music from the Zee Music catalog, they actually pay for it.

That is in line with what the market pays either to us or what we pay to other players in the music industry. Those are very much in line with those.

In terms of additional disclosures, Kavish, we are working on that so that when we start disclosing those, it comes out very clearly and very, very transparently to all of you. Evaluation of strategic action, while we keep evaluating multiple strategic actions as and when approached or we approach somebody, but as of now, there is nothing that I need to disclose or I can disclose.

Got it.

Lastly, could you provide some color on the increase in inventory this time? It is close to highest level in over two years.

How should we think about this? A follow-up to that, depreciation and amortization have been consistently trending down for the past several quarters.

What would you consider a normalized quarterly run rate for the D&A line item?

Mukund, can you take it, please? Yeah.

In inventory, one of the reasons for the increase is FIFA, because in Quarter 1, the outflows have happened, whereas it will flow through the P&L in Quarter 2. That is one major reason.

Otherwise, it's all normal business as usual as far as inventory is concerned.

On the amortization piece?

Amortization, I think, see, at some point of time in the past few years, we had undertaken heavy capital expenditure at our technology center, which is flowing through amort and depreciation. There will be a cycle of capital expenditure when we undertake that, which will impact.

We don't see this line item growing anything, making any significant impact on our results. The current run rate is what we can work with

going ahead, is that fair?

In the range, yes. Yeah.

Understood. Thanks, Mukund.

Thanks, Punit. All the very best.

Thank you.

Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, is it possible to share how many B2C additions we have had for 3 months versus 12 months in ZEE5 after acquiring the FIFA rights?

Because I believe we just had a B2C plan in place, and these were the two plans that we had launched. Just wanted to understand the stickiness aspect of the subscribers that have come on board.

A related follow-up is that because we did not get time for B2B deals, at least on the FIFA side, are we negotiating on that bit now?

On the B2C additions, in the last quarter itself, we have more than doubled our subscriber base. A large part of that may be due to FIFA, but there is also a consumer base that comes in for non-sports is what I can say.

The movement of B2B deals, certainly we are in discussion with the B2B partners, but again for confidentiality reasons, I will not be able to disclose any details to you right now. We are in dialogue with them.

Sure.

Jinesh, just to answer your question on the stickiness, you may have seen the slate launches, etc., which our teams have made, and those were done in time, and our teams continue to work on keeping the viewers engaged on ZEE5.

Sure. Actually, I was looking out for a breakdown between the onboarded subscribers that have jumped into a 3-month plan versus a 12-month plan post the launch of FIFA pack, because if a higher ratio is towards a 12-month plan, that indicates a subscriber stickiness.

Nonetheless, I'll take this offline. I have a second follow-up on FIFA bit only.

I think the content was behind a paywall from day one, and that is why we also saw a very sharp revenue growth come through. On the margin side, I think the performance was slightly weaker.

No doubt, the content amortization does happen, and you'll also have some A&P spends on FIFA. Given we had an active monetization plan in place, how to think about margins in this quarter, and given the fact that we have now acquired rights for Bundesliga and Serie A that you mentioned, how to think about the margins from a slightly near-term perspective?

I think, Jinesh, you have to also keep in mind the fact that we had 10 days before FIFA went on air, which means that there was hardly any time for monetization on the advertising front. While we were able to monetize it very well on the subscription side, the advertising front obviously would have taken some kind of timeline for it to start to fire.

We on Bundesliga and Serie A have enough time in our hand, and therefore, we are confident that we should be able to monetize that much better.

Understood. Sir, one last question from my side.

The shareholder approval that we have got for the preferential allotment, just wanted to know whether it has any kind of timeline validity in place or so is it valid for say 1 year, 6 months? Is there anything of that sort of a structure that is into place?

Just wanted to know that.

The usual approval, Jinesh, is valid for 1 year. Having said that, since we have approached the regulator as well as the tribunal, the matter is sub judice, we would refrain from any further disclosure on this at this point.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Hi, good evening, sir. This is Sameer from IIFL.

First question is on the ad revenue part, sir. Most FMCG companies have reported results for 1Q, and most of them are calling inflation risk as a manageable at this point.

Of course, they've all taken price hikes, but at least towards the second half, they feel that it is going to be manageable. Also, 1Q was also a peak of uncertainty, and now I'm not sure, but we're more in a stable zone.

Do you feel that even if this is an inflationary year, ad revenue trajectory over the course of the year should normalize largely? See,

as I stated, Sameer, in my opening remarks, that we are cautiously optimistic that it will stabilize over the coming period, especially both the facts that our market share has improved and that festive season is approaching, and thirdly, the West Asia war seems to be sorting itself out. All these three factors should have an impact on the advertising front going forward.

Got it, sir. That is very clear.

Second question is on the EBITDA margin. Again, high ad spends this quarter, this is related to an event, but how should one look at full-year EBITDA margin for this year?

Any thoughts or color on this aspect?

No, Sameer, with this kind of uncertainty in the market, I will not be in a position to give you a guidance on the EBITDA margin for the year.

Sure, sir. No worries.

Last if I may squeeze in, any details you can share around the FIFA deal? Anything that you can share?

I understand large part of it will be confidential, but anything on how much is the acquisition cost of the rights, what is the timeline of the payment, how much is immediately going to be contingent in the next few years? Any color you can share here will be helpful.

Yeah. While Mukund will take it, but as we have the rights for eight years.

Obviously, the payments would be over eight years. What the value is, we can't share because it is highly confidential.

Mukund, you want to add? Yeah.

Sameer, like you've noticed, we have 39 events till '34. That the major events besides the Under-17 and the Under-19 World Cup will be Women's World Cup in Brazil, which is scheduled next year, and then that follows with the World Cup in 2030, which is the 100 centenary year of FIFA, which will be across Morocco, Portugal, and Spain.

The payments, like Punit mentioned, are staggered, there will be a higher amount which will be attributable to the 2030 World Cup, for sure.

The amount attributable to the recently concluded World Cup, that has already been paid and expensed out in the P&L, as in by 2Q it will be expensed out?

Right. 2Q it will be, yeah, that's right.

I may just add here that the significant portion will be in Q2, both from a revenue and cost perspective, compared to Q1. I can give you that color.

Q2 should also see ad revenue boost, given the major matches were telecasted on Doordarshan?

Because the knockout stages were in Q2, so that has got us the traction in advertising picked up. Like Punit mentioned, we had limited time before the June 11th start, the traction has picked up in Q2.

Got it, sir. That's all from me.

Just to add, Sameer, the subscription revenue also, since it's on accrual basis, will also see a significant boost in Q2 compared to Q1.

Got it. That's very helpful.

Thanks again. I am done with my questions.

I'll come back in the queue for any follow-ups. Yeah.

Thanks for the opportunity. Most of my questions have been answered, just a couple of things.

One, if you can update on Star arbitration case?

Yeah.

Mr. Doshi, the Star arbitration hearings were held in July, which we have disclosed, and now further procedural steps will follow, and we are looking at an outcome possibly in Q3 of this year.

Yeah.

Will there be more hearings or it's like there will be no hearing now and we'll directly get the outcome?

Dikshit, very difficult to say in a legal matter whether there'll be more hearings or not. As of now, we've been given the understanding that the final hearing is done, and we have to make final submissions sometime in the next one month or month and a half, and post which, if the tribunal feels that they need more hearings, we don't know.

These are all sub judice matters, very difficult for us to comment or comment anything on that.

Okay. Understood.

Last question on Zee5—sorry, Zee Music. You mentioned that, we always look out for some strategic tie-up, and we are open for it.

Has there been any thought process behind the demerger, if not the any strategic tie-up?

We have thought about the demerger of the music business, but right now, there is no strategic reason for us to demerge the business outward. Therefore, we are not pursuing it unless some corporate action actually transpires.

Understood. Thank you.

That's it from mine.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. Thanks for joining us.

Do feel free to reach out to us if there are any follow-up questions as you do a deeper study of our numbers. We'll be available and look forward to speaking to you again in the next quarter.

Thank you very much and have a great evening.