Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Aaditya Mulani from the HT Media Group. I would like to welcome you all to our quarter four and full financial year 2025/2026 earnings webinar. As a reminder, all the participants will be in listen-only mode. After we are through with the presentation, there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions. Joining me on today's call are Mr. Piyush Gupta, Group CFO, Mr. Pervez Bajan, Head of Financial Controllership and Taxation, and members of our team. We hope you have had an opportunity to review the financial results of Hindustan Media Ventures Limited announced yesterday, as well as those of HT Media Limited released earlier this afternoon. Please note that our discussion today will follow the presentation slides, which along with the financial statements, are available on the stock exchanges and in the investor relations sections of our respective websites.
Moving on to slide two. This slide includes our standard disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements. As per usual practice, we do not provide specific guidance on revenue or earnings projections. On to the next slide. This slide features comments from our Chairperson on the company's performance, and I quote, "The fourth quarter of 2025/2026 and the full year marked a period of decisive transformation for your company, one characterized by meaningful improvement in profitability, even as consolidated revenue remained broadly stable on an annual basis. Our print business performed well both for the quarter and the full year. Advertising-led revenue growth across our English and Hindi mastheads translated into higher profitability. In the near term, though, rising newsprint costs, amplified by a weakening rupee and the prevailing global environment of supply chain disruptions, trade policy uncertainty, and geopolitical volatility remains a concern that we are managing with cost discipline.
The radio business faced a tough year, with revenue declining on a full-year basis. Business was impacted by a high base from prior years' event-led revenue and was compounded by larger industry-wide issues. As part of the ongoing streamlining of our radio business, your company has surrendered non-viable licenses, sharpening the network footprint and improving business profitability. In digital, our results reflect a deliberate and value-accretive reset. The discontinuation of OTTplay business is in line with our focus on profitable growth. As always, your trust powers our journey. We remain unwavering in our commitment to trusted journalism, quality content for our diverse audiences, and sustainable long-term value for our shareholders." End of quote. Today's agenda will begin with a performance update focusing on the consolidated financial results for the fourth quarter and full financial year.
This will be followed by an overview of our print, radio, and digital business segments. After which we will open the floor for a Q&A session. With this, I now hand over to Mr. Piyush Gupta for the main presentation.
Thank you, Aaditya. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our earnings call for FY 2026 fourth quarter and the full year results. We will be tracking the webinar on your screens. If we look at the consolidated financial summary, total revenue remains stable for the full year. However, margin expanded on a YoY basis both for the quarter and for the year. Cash position stays robust. Diving a little bit into the numbers, for the fourth quarter, if you see the total revenue came in at INR 558 crore, which is down 2%. EBITDA at INR 131 crore, which is up 5%. Margins expanded by 100 basis points at 23%. PAT came at INR 96 crore and a PAT margin at 17%. On a full-year basis, it was a flat revenue with EBITDA at INR 298 crore with an 8% growth.
If you look at EBITDA margin, again, a 100-basis point improvement you can see, and PAT came at INR 153 crore at a margin of 8%, and our net cash position remains robust, north of INR 1,000 crore. Diving into business unit performance. First, Print. As you can see, ad revenues have remained strong for the quarter and full year, led by yield improvement. Circulation revenues have held steady with an uptick in the quarter, primarily from higher copies, and healthy margin expansion seen for the segment. Again, a bit into the numbers. Ad revenue 10% at INR 313 crore. Circulation revenue growth of 4% at INR 51 crore. Operating revenue hence at INR 427 crore, and operating EBITDA coming at INR 97 crore with a 23% margin. For the full year, revenues at INR 1,148 crore, which is an 8% growth. Circulation revenue flat.
Operating revenue at INR 1,500 crore is an 8% increase, and operating EBITDA came at INR 208 crore with an EBITDA margin of 14%. Diving into English ad revenue. For the quarter, ad revenues, which I told you came at INR 172 crore. This is a YoY growth of 9%. On a full year basis at INR 644 crore, with a growth of 8%. Circulation revenue on a quarterly basis grew by 13% at INR 13 crore and on a full year basis at 53% with a marginal decline of 5%. Coming into Hindi. Ad revenues for Hindi grew by 12% for the quarter at INR 142 crore and for the full year at INR 504 crore with a growth of 8%. Circulation revenues virtually flat at INR 38 crore. Same for the full year revenue of circulation which is at INR 155 crore.
A quick look at radio. The segment revenue declined on account of high events-led revenue, which is there sitting in the base. Business continues to be under pressure with subdued margins. Diving into the numbers, the quarterly numbers operating revenue came at INR 43 crore, with operating EBITDA at a negative INR 17 crore. On a full year basis, the revenue came at INR 140 crore with operating EBITDA of INR -22 crore. Finally, look at the digital, which is Shine.com and Mosaic Digital. Segment revenues restated for continued operation had a steady held steady for both the quarter and the full year. A slight dip in margins. On the revenue for the quarter, it is a flat operating revenue at INR 39 crore with operating EBITDA at a INR -2 crore.
On a full year basis, its operating revenue again flat at INR 155 crore and operating EBITDA at INR -8 crore with a -5% margin. With that, we come to the end of the presentation.
Thanks, Piyush. We will now begin the Q&A session. You can click on the Raise Hand option, which will enable the moderator to unmute you for posing your query. Please introduce yourself before posing your query, and kindly restrict to a maximum of two to three questions per participant so that we may be able to address questions from all participants. Also, as is the ambit of this call, please be mindful to pose questions pertaining to the listed entity, HT Media Limited, and those within its consolidated structure. We will wait for a few moments while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of [Yash R]. Please introduce yourself and ask your question.
Hi. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, Yash.
The number seems decent, especially the ad revenues. Congratulations on that on the first brand. We have grown around 12%- odd in Hindi and 9%- odd in our-
Yash, can you repeat the question? The voice just got garbled up. Can you be a little slow and repeat the question, please?
Sure. I will be a little louder. Is it better?
Much better. Thank you.
Okay. Yeah, sure. Ad revenues have grown in English and Hindi as well by almost, I would say, double-digit in English, 9%. Are these on the back of volumes or have you increased any pricing?
The simple answer is, [Yash], as I explained or actually I didn't explain that was in the Board meeting. The lever for the growth in revenues is primarily yields. Volume have been by and large flat, which have tracked the industry. It's basically pricing. Now we'll have to see how much of that is structural, how much. There's a big effort that we are doing on pricing, which has flown into the results in this quarter.
Okay. This is across both Hindi and English? Or is it only for English?
Across.
Okay. There seems to be a tremendous growth in the other operating income in both. What's that on the back of? Because I believe that Hindi, HML operating income has grown by almost 100%. By my calculation it's around INR 32 and it was practically half last year in the same quarter.
Well, there are two things sitting in other operating income. One obviously is the profit on sale of assets that we do, which is the AFE assets. So that is a number which has flown in. Secondly, as you know, on our AFE team, we have got these contracts with counterparties and there is a certain contractual revenue which has to come in a specified period of time. If that does not happen, that amount stands forfeited. So some part of that is on account of forfeiture and some is on account of selling of the AFE assets.
What about the circulation revenues? I mean, it has been mentioned that there has been an improvement in the English part. So is that copies again or is that on the back of the prices?
Well, overall circulation revenue is +4% between English and Hindi.
Okay.
I would say realization for copy is slightly flat at about 3% here and there.
Okay.
But there's not a huge amount of variance in circulation revenue. Overall TO is slightly up. We've been trying to go for a certain copy share market- by- market, not carte blanche. So number of copies definitely are on board to play. But I don't think it's a very substantial amount. It's just that we want to retain a certain level of copy share in our key markets.
In the presentation, the English circulation, I mean, you say is 13%. So I was just wondering and I know there's a comment that says that it is on the back of increase in circulation. So I just want to clarify whether that's on the back of the pricing or the copies are up. Because it says-
Copies. Primarily copies.
Okay. That's good news. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, [Yash].
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, a reminder to all participants that you may use the Raise Hand option on your screen if you wish to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Rohan Agarwal. Please introduce yourself and ask your question. Rohan Agarwal, please introduce yourself and ask your question.
Hi, am I audible?
Yes, Rohan, you are. Good afternoon.
Hi, Piyush. This is Rohan Agarwal from Wave Asset PMS. I just had a couple of questions. One, could you give us a little more color on your decision to discontinue the OTTplay division? As in, what led to that decision, and what would now be your future growth levels given that you've shut off the digital division?
I think that's a great question, Rohan. Rohan, if you just go back, the last three or four investors earnings call, we've been maintaining that there are quite a few levers that we are trying to turn in OTTplay. But there's a finality to everything, and we've given ourselves a certain time. If in that we can make the unit economics and the entire P&L work, we will double down, hence we will take appropriate decisions. Obviously, we've been trying multiple things, both from on the content strategy, on the acquisition strategy, on the retaining strategy of various subscribers and so on so forth. However, in spite of our best effort, the space became increasingly challenging, especially since all the big telcos also have a significant presence.
Though I must also caveat that we had already segmented our markets not as tier one, but tier two and tier three towns, whereby we were using a different distribution channel to propagate our product. But having done all that, we could make the whole proposition work. Therefore, we've decided to call it quits on OTTplay, and we've been leading the investors towards this direction for the last three or four quarters. Now, the second part of your question is the future growth drivers. I think that's a great question. Though it's not consolidated here, but from a group perspective, we've always been saying that if digital is the future, we obviously are prioritizing our investments behind our digital business. So, digital business is something that we will obviously prioritize. But please remember, the core of our business, for the time being, is our core print business.
As your predecessor asked about circulation numbers, we have been investing in copies for getting a certain copy share, and we will keep on doing that, which have been financed by a very handsome yield improvement. We will keep on investing behind the core, but a lot of investment will also go behind the businesses of tomorrow, primarily digital businesses. I hope I've answered your question, Rohan.
Sure, Piyush. Thanks. I also had another question. While I'm just trying to figure out another growth driver for the company, in the previous question, you were talking about the sale of AFE assets. I just wanted to know what's the company's policy when it comes to monetizing the AFE assets. Does the company actively look for secondary transactions to monetize them or on exit events? If you could give us some more detail on that would be great.
Yeah, the simple answer is yes. We are not holding these assets for the very long term. Of course, it doesn't mean that we'll flip the assets within months. But at the earliest opportunity, when we think we can maximize the value for the organization, we will sell these assets. If you look at our track record over the last four, five years, I think we've managed to do this activity pretty successfully. With the AFE portfolio that we have right now, which has all maturities of assets, fully matured assets, semi-matured assets, and of course assets which are under baked at this point in time, we keep on looking at a portfolio strategy to maximize the cash and sell. The company's policy is very clear. We have to maximize value. But we are not desperate sellers.
We've got a reasonable portfolio, and we'll be active sellers in the market. As much effort we make in striking new deals and getting new asset acquisition, that's the same effort which goes behind divestiture of these assets as well.
Got it. Just to clarify, whenever you buy any AFE assets, it is always non-cash transaction, right? You are never paying for acquiring any of the AFE assets other than with ad space, right?
You are right, Rohan.
All right, great. Thanks for your answers. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
The next question is again from the line of [Yash R]. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hi. I was seeing the HML results, and there seems to be some number changes in the previous year segment revenue by around INR 6- odd crore.
Yes.
I will just elucidate. Last year, we had reported a number of around INR 673 crore for the segment revenue of print publishing newspapers and periodicals. But when I am looking at the results, now it says INR 667.23, and I believe the PBIT or the results profitability has gone down an equal amount.
Can I request my colleague Pervez to answer that question? Pervez, would you like to?
Yeah. Yash, hi. Yash, this is because of inter-segment revenue, where OTTplay had advertised in the print newspaper. Because OTTplay went into disc ops, this was the correct thing to do as per accounting standards.
So we are within that also?
Yes.
Okay. All right. Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of [Ranga Prasad]. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon. At the outset, I would like to say that I am quite relieved that the company has finally decided to scale down or shut down its unreliable businesses in the form of surrendering radio licenses and getting out of the OTTplay business. During the past few years, our company has incurred huge losses due to these unreliable businesses. I find that just in this last one year, our company has shown an exceptional loss from continuing operations of INR 114 crore and a loss from disc ops of INR 101 crore, totaling INR 215 crore lost. I am glad that management has finally taken steps to stem these losses. Better late than never. Going forward in the coming few quarters, what can we expect?
Can we expect any further exceptional losses due to the surrendering of the radio licenses or relaunching our radio business? Can we expect any further losses on account of shutting down the OTTplay business?
Okay, great question. Ranga, you got something further?
Yeah, just a clarification. I would like to have to clarify or throw some light on two ratios. One is, why has other income dropped by about INR 50 crore from INR 218 crore in FY 2025 to INR 197 crore in 2026, the other income. Second thing is, what's the rationale for HMVL making an investment of INR 22 crore in a seemingly unrelated business, a business which has shown close to nil revenues, though it has been in business for over eight years. I'm referring to the investment in AssetVault Limited.
Okay.
Some light on that.
Okay. So three questions that I have taken, Ranga. First of all, thank you very much for those kind words. Yes, of course, those exceptional losses and disc ops are big numbers, and we totally take your point on Board. I have basically taken down three questions, and correct me if I'm wrong. One, you're asking about the go-forward strategy. Second, you've asked for a clarification on other income. Third is on this AssetVault, which is an investment that you asked. Am I right?
Yes, that's correct.
Okay.
Primarily concerned that are we going to take some additional losses on account of the closed businesses in future? The answer is no.
Last question, let me answer first. Are we going to take any further closure losses or disc ops or exceptional losses? The simple answer is no. But even if you break down the exceptional items in this year, one of the big items which is hitting is the consequence of the new Labour Codes, which were announced by the Government of India. That, of course, if anything of statutory nature does come, that obviously will impact the financials. But from the business side, I can absolutely tell you that we have kind of looked at the entire portfolio of businesses, and we've cleaned up as much as possible. Just to give you a sense, OTTplay, I think I've already explained, so you heard me.
On the radio, we did an entire portfolio review where all the five loss-making frequencies now and one loss-making frequency earlier, totaling to six loss-making frequencies. Those are the frequencies that we've surrendered back to the Government of India. All existing frequencies are profitable frequencies, and obviously our intent is to increase the profitability as we go forward. However, as I explained in the webinar, radio as a sector is under a lot of pressure, but we will keep on reviewing this on a very close basis. But right now, all the frequencies or all the stations which are not turning in a profit, we've already surrendered those frequencies. Going forward, if I just have to marry the thought, our investments will go a lot into the core business, which you've seen have gone into the circulation and copies in this quarter.
And some part of the investments will go in our digital business, not the digital segment of HT Media Consolidated, but the Digicontent Limited also, where we are prioritizing some investments. That is the part on going forward and could we kind of have any more exceptional losses. Coming to other income, we basically had the interest income, which is interest. We have got a substantial treasury which is sitting there. The interest income has obviously. If you track the yield curves, yield curves are at a record high. The 10-year is close to about 7% and so on, so forth. There are quite a few mark-to-market losses that have impacted us as on 31st of March. We are very hopeful. This is patient capital, right? We do not have to withdraw this capital tomorrow. We will tide out the curve.
We are very hopeful that the yield curves will stabilize and these will come back. That is what is impacting other income to the extent of INR 50 crore in a full year. Of course, there are various other small reasons, but that is the chunk of the reason which is happening there. On the AssetVault, you are right. AssetVault, the revenue is a pretty small revenue at this point in time. But as I explained earlier, it is again an AFE investment. It is not a cash investment. It is an AFE investment, and there are certain marketing plans that the company has for the market of India where we would like to give our marketing properties and partner with them in the hope that the asset will become profitable. So there is no cash invested. That is AssetVault with the brand name AasaanWill .
I hope I have answered your question.
Yes. Thank you very much. I am quite relieved with the decision being taken, and I am hoping to see our company return to good profitability in the coming two quarters. Thank you very much. I am very relieved.
Thank you, [Ranga]. Thank you very much. Thanks for the kind words.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Raman KV. Please introduce yourself and ask your question.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah. Hi, Raman. Please go ahead. We can hear you.
Hi, I am Raman from Sequent Investments. I have a few questions. Sorry, I joined the call a little late. Can you just provide me the current yields with respect to the circulation? Like how quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year improvement in the yields figure?
Well, we can't because this is competitive information. I can tell you are talking about circulation yields, right? You're not talking about ads. Well, circulation yields I would basically just broadly say have been flat YoY. The copies have increased because we are going after copy share. I can't give you that specific number. I have a blended number, but that number has to be seen market by market. I can broadly tell you that we are in the ballpark of the competitive forces are different in different markets, and we try to benchmark our realization for copies on a market-to-market perspective.
If my understanding is right, your realization of copies has increased during the quarter. You gave me-
It has. It has, but marginally because the constraint there will be competition. You are right, our realization per copy has increased.
And sir, if you can give a ballpark figure with respect to gaining market share in the copy segment. Have you gained the market share during the quarter?
Well, in a few markets, yes, we have taken additional, we call it copy share because this is on copies. Yes, on a few markets, we have increased the copy share, which is a part of our conscious strategy, and we plan to keep it like that. But you have to understand, when you go after copy share, there are certain short-term trade-offs that you have to do for long-term gains. So which we are doing on a market-to-market basis. But broadly, our copy share has gone up marginally. Yes.
So the growth in EBITDA with respect to the printing division, is it because the advertisement realization has increased or is it because on the back of circulation yield improvement?
No, the first one. Ad yields, because you joined the call slightly late, I was explaining to one of our earlier participants, our ad rates or ad yields, what we call them, have increased substantially. Of course it's a full algorithm. You put in a certain copy, you recruit new readers, you give a certain value proposition to advertisers, and you try to have certain level of AFE deals where the new guys can come on board who either who would not be advertisers and so on and so forth. Then you demand a certain pricing on your advertisement, and that has played out very beautifully in this quarter. So it's ad rates.
Is this current ad yields maintainable, like sustainable for the coming year as well?
To an extent, yes. But I won't do a carte blanche on that because maintaining 100% gains, et c., is never. Because there's an immediate reaction which always comes from the competition. But our hope and prayer, and even for the plan that we've set out for ourselves, though we don't give a forward guidance, we plan to keep our yields at a certain level and above, not below.
Okay. My last question is with respect to your discontinued business. How much are you planning to expect once you completely discontinue your OTTplay business? Are you expecting any inflow of cash into the company?
What do you mean by that? I mean the-
Are you planning to sell off the existing OTTplay brand-
No.
or distribution which you have built to someone else? I just want to understand how are you planning to discontinue and will there be any?
Yeah, Raman, we have had those strategic conversations with a lot of potential partners and suitors. Unfortunately, nothing has worked out. At this point in time, we have decided to shut down the business. This was not a capital heavy business, so there is no residual value. Yeah, we tried all those things, but right now it is not making sense.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Welcome.
Thank you. The next question is again from the line of Rohan Agarwal. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Continuation of the OTTplay business. Can you confirm if there will be no further one-time losses attributing to that business that will show up in the coming quarters?
Yeah. Rohan, what I can confirm is. Let me give you two or three data points. Effective 31st of March, which was the last date in which we were selling OTTplay subscription. From 1st of April, we are not selling any OTT subscription. However, subscriptions which have been sold on or prior to 31st March will have to be serviced for the life, which can typically be ranging from one month to six months, any point in time. If the unit economics of that is not working out, there might be marginal losses, et c., which will basically come into the P&L for FY 2027, but that will be a very small number.
Also parallelly, you should expect that because we are winding down the business, all the negotiated contracts that we had on the content side, on the ISP side, on the channel partner side are being exited by a certain negotiation and a certain contractual nature. Those will basically tantamount to cash flows. There will be some cash impact to shut down these contracts. But from a P&L perspective, there will be a very marginal impact of some residual subscribers who purchased their subscriptions in March and might go up till September, but that will be a very small number rounding off.
So basically it is expenses related to servicing those-
Yes
residual subscription timelines. That is it.
Yes. You are absolutely right, Rohan.
Got it. My last question, does the Board of the company have any policy regarding the substantial cash pile that we have now? If you can give us any information on that.
Well, Rohan, the Board always discusses the cash pile and what to do. As I can tell you, and we had a Board meeting, the company would like to create long-term sustainable value for shareholders by investing in businesses of tomorrow. Of course, we tried OTTplay. After a certain time when we realized that is not going to work out, we have also decided to exit that space. But that cash at this point in time, the board has thought it fit to invest behind businesses of tomorrow and create a long-term value.
No plans to return anything to the shareholders currently?
Well, there is none so far.
Sure. Cool. Thanks. Appreciate your answers.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you all. With this, we come to the end of the Q&A session. If you have any further queries, please reach out to the investor relations team. Our contact details are given in the investor presentation and are also mentioned on our website. I now hand over to Piyush for closing remarks.
Thank you, Aaditya . Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for participating in our earnings call. I am very pleased with the kind words some of you shared with us. Our hope and expectation is that we will be able to churn out such good set of numbers quarter- after- quarter for you. Some of the new investments that we will plan will create long-term sustainable value for all shareholders. I wish you all the very best. I look forward to seeing you in the next quarterly earnings call. Thank you very much. Have a great day.