DTH player Dish TV on Wednesday reported a consolidated net loss of ₹66.77 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2019. The company had posted a net profit of ₹152.69 crore in the corresponding quarter previous fiscal. It had reported a consolidated net loss of ₹96.37 crore in the second quarter ended September 30, 2019.

The company also said it was “cautious but optimistic” about improvement in its liquidity situation and hopes to get alternative credit facilities to finance its regular capital expenditure.

Total income for the quarter under review stood at ₹870.90 crore as against ₹1,529.57 crore in the corresponding quarter in previous fiscal. It said that with the programming cost becoming a “pass-through item” under the new tariff regime, subscription and operating revenues for the quarter were not comparable with the corresponding period.

“Dish TV India witnessed tapering subscriber acquisitions in the period post Diwali. This was despite a good start to the third quarter and an expectation that H2 of the fiscal should be much stronger than the modest first half,” it added.

The DTH player said it paid part of the overdue loan amount and is “confident of clearing the balance overdue by the end of this month”. According to a company statement, debt and interest payment obligations which fell due after the particular incident of non-service have also been fulfilled on time and that overdue payments to creditors are also being made as per the plan agreed with them.

Anil Dua, Group CEO, Dish TV India Ltd, said: “We are cautious but optimistic about improvement in our liquidity situation. We are in regular touch with lenders and hope to get alternative credit facilities to finance regular capex to normalise the utilisation of cash flows towards debt repayment going forward.”

“In the absence of fresh credit availability, due to reasons beyond its control, the company had already been drawing on its internal cash accruals to fund essential capital expenditure for a significant period of time. A subsequent default in the payment of its short term loan amounting to ₹2,500 million led to a downgrade of its short-term banking facilities to ‘CARE D’ by Care Ratings Limited,” the company stated. It added this default which was the result of a temporary cash shortfall, further impacted its ability to to target available customers in the market.

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