Media and entertainment firm Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL) has announced financial results for the third quarter ended December 2008 reporting 26% decline in its consolidated net profit, which stood at Rs 83.97 crore, as against Rs 113.47 crore for the same quarter, a year ago.

Rising input costs and a slowdown in its advertising revenue growth adversely hit the company’s business for the reporting quarter leading to significant decline in revenue and net profit.
 

Stock market analysts have maintained ‘buy’ rating on Entertainment Network stock with a short term target of Rs 191.

The investors can achieve the said target within a period of 4-5 weeks. So they are advised not to sell the stock before achieving this price target.

According to analysts, interested investors can purchase the stock on declines with a stop loss of Rs 163. If the stock market remains positive in the coming days, the next target for the stock will be above Rs 197.
 

Due to the non-payment of overdue amount of Rs 8.05 crore, a lender bank has taken possession of assets of Jagran Prakashan Private Ltd, publisher of Indore edition of leading Hindi newspaper, Dainik Jagran.

During the last month alone, the company’s stock lost nearly 20 per cent.

The assets of the company were taken by the bank on January 14 under Section 13 of Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002.

A newly formed joint venture between NaiDunia promoter and CEO Vinay Chhajlani and former Businessworld editor Jehangir S Pocha, has bought INX News, the company that runs the English news channel NewsX.

For this purpose, both Chhajlani and Pocha have formed a company called Indi Media. However, the size of the deal is still unknown.

In a first step toward news regulation, the news broadcast association (NBA) has issued guidelines for crisis coverage by the Indian media. It is recalled that news channels were charged with negative coverage during the recent terror attack in Mumbai. There are voices from many quarters to set norms for news broadcasting in the crisis hours. Security specialists and Military experts have also expressed reservations on broadcasting live telecast of terror and hostage activities as it can help terrorists to reshape their strategy.

Due to the TV workers’ strike and terror attacks in Mumbai, the Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) had been hit badly.

As a result, channels saw an average fall by 35-55% in prime time viewership.

After the controversial strike finally called off, the ratings started rising gradually, and this time the commencing of new shows add much to the ‘TRPs’ than fresh episodes of existing shows for major GECs.