Losses of the Reliance Industries’ media business have widened in the second quarter of FY25 to ₹188 crore from ₹155 crore a year ago while revenue fell 2 per cent to ₹1,825 crore, due to a dip in revenues from the movies segment as well as muted television advertisements.

Reliance Industries has created an integrated media platform by merging the news business with Network18. The transaction between Viacom18 and Star India and their merger in the next quarter is expected to create an even larger media house.

JioCinema, on which a lot of content is free, has 16 million paid subscribers and its strategy of streaming IPL live for free has paid dividends.

The company said the news portfolio revenue grew 6 per cent driven by growth in digital segment advertising revenue, across all brands. It pointed out that TV advertising environment was soft during the quarter as advertising volumes for news genre across the industry declined by over 20 per cent on year. The EBITDA for the news business saw an improvement with a sharp turnaround in the first half of the fiscal, it said.

Entertainment business operating revenue was down 5 per cent, primarily due to the drop in movie segment revenue. Viacom18 Studios had no movie releases in the quarter. This was somewhat offset by growth in subscription revenue on account of new pricing as well as the increased monetisation of sports portfolio, on which the company is spending a lot.

Growth in ad revenue was primarily driven by digital, across both sports and non-sports segments.

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