'TV9 Network's journey is about complete disruption'

Barun Das, who joined the TV9 Network in August 2019 as its CEO, has turned around a small, loss-making news network, into a profitable venture with both TV and digital operations.

- Gaurav Laghate

Das, who previously worked with Zee News, India Today and ABP in various managerial positions in the past, said his mandate was to make TV9 Network one of the leading news networks in India. In an exclusive interview with Mint, he spoke about the three pillars—content, distribution and marketing—which helped to go from a net loss of ₹55 crore in FY20 to a net profit of ₹76 crore in FY23. Edited excerpts…

You will complete four years as TV9 Network CEO this week. How will you describe the journey of turnaround so far?
Hindi news channel TV9 Bharatvarsha was launched in March and I joined in August of that year. Because of the launch-related expenses, we had an Ebitda loss of ₹44 crore and a net loss of ₹55 crore in FY20. But since then, if you look year on year, our topline grew 40% in FY21, 50% in FY22 and 16% in FY23. While almost everybody in the news industry grew in FY22, because they were growing on the covid slump, for us, it was different because we grew on a 40% growth over the previous year. FY23, if you check the listed players, have either remained stagnant or have seen a drop.

Now coming to the bottom line, I started at a net loss of ₹55 crore in FY20, the next year FY21 we broke even, FY22 we had a PAT of about ₹50 crore and in FY23, we ended with a PAT of ₹76 crore. Again, if you compare with the listed news companies, they have witnessed a significant drop, ranging from 30% to 70%. So this is the journey, now you need to decide whether you call it a complete turnaround or you call it a disruption.

In terms of revenues, where do you stack up with your competition?