...Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience, and good day, and welcome to Q1 FY25 earnings conference call of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited. As a reminder, all participants live will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Mahesh Pratap Singh, Head of Investor Relations, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thank you, Dipika. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our Q1 FY25 earnings discussion. Thanks for standing by. We have with us today our Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Punit Goenka, along with senior management team. We will start with the opening remarks from Mr. Goenka. Post this, we will subsequently open the floor for questions and answers. Mr. Goenka has to leave a bit early today, but the team will stay back for the remainder of the call and take all the questions. Before we get started, I'd like to remind everyone that some of the statements made or discussed on today's call will be forward-looking in nature and must be viewed in conjunction with risks and uncertainties we face. The company does not undertake to update any of these forward-looking statements publicly. With that, I'll now hand the call over to Mr. Goenka for his opening remarks. Thank you, Mahesh. Good evening, everyone. I trust all of you are doing well. Thank you for joining us this evening to discuss the company's performance in first quarter of the new fiscal FY 2024-25. I will take you through the key aspects of our earnings during the quarter, and then we can proceed to the Q&A session. The maiden quarter of the new financial year commenced with an improving operating performance for the company. The results of several strategic steps implemented in the previous quarter are being witnessed gradually, and we continue to maintain a sharp focus on frugality, optimization, and quality content across business. Timely and action-oriented interventions centered around these three key tenets have enabled us to achieve a healthy growth momentum on the margin profile. Compared to the previous quarter, our margins continue to display considerable improvement sequentially, and we aim to drive this positive momentum higher as we move forward into this fiscal. Over the past few months, excuse me, we have put in concerted efforts to formulate a strategic and aggressive growth trajectory for the company, and the fundraising exercise is a firm step in this direction. We have taken the necessary steps to create a robust financial foundation in line with our long-term plan of delivering higher performance and enhancing the value accretive capabilities of the company in the interest of all our shareholders. Coming back to the company's performance during the quarter, despite seeing some green shoots in the last quarter of the previous fiscal. The advertising revenue growth still remains subdued, with rural recovery yet to pick up entirely. In addition to the softness in demand, this quarter was also sports-heavy, coupled with general elections, which further took the share away from general entertainment advertising spends. These factors have impacted our advertising revenue during the quarter. However, in this challenging environment, our prudent cost discipline across the business helped offset the headwinds. Our conversations with large FMCG clients indicate the pickup in advertising spends in the second half of the fiscal and with the onset of the festive season. That said, we remain cautiously optimistic of the macroeconomic environment improving and growth momentum picking up as we move forward in the fiscal. We are encouraged by the schemes and initiatives proposed by the Finance Minister in the Union Budget announced last week to help spur demand and boost the rural economy growth rate in mid to long term. On the subscription side, the outlook remains steady, and we have continued to benefit from the implementation of the National Tariff Order 3.0, which is driving subscription revenue growth. With a conducive policy framework in place, we are hopeful of registering a gradual growth in linear subscription revenue in line with the inflation in coming few quarters as well. This, coupled with the steady growth of ZEE5 subscription, is resulting into a balanced and healthy revenue profile from the linear and digital segments. During the quarter, the TV entertainment viewership across the industry witnessed a marginal impact due to sports and elections. The magnitude of the impact on our network share was much lower than some of our peers during the quarter. Furthermore, in July, we have already regained the viewership share and are well placed in our key markets. The underlying fundamentals remain strong, and we continue to invest significant time and energy to enhance our delivery of quality content to further consolidate our viewership share gains. On the digital front, I had mentioned in the previous quarter that our near-term focus is to achieve a balanced cost structure to drive profitability for the long term. The teams have put in immense efforts during the quarter to optimize and arrive at a balanced financial profile for ZEE5, and I'm pleased to note that we are already on the path to achieve a healthy cost structure for the business, which is evident in the significant reduction in the EBITDA loss this quarter. As we progress in this phase towards our targeted cost objective, the digital business growth rate witnessed a marginal slowdown, but we expect it to rebound in the second half of the year. ZEE5 remains well positioned in the digital landscape and has seen healthy quarter-on-quarter growth in usage and engagement metrics, underscoring its strong fundamentals. With the platform's strategic focus on good quality content, language markets, targeted investments, and an exciting content lineup, we expect ZEE5 growth momentum to sustain. In the movies and music business, we continue to drive synergy benefits across our portfolio to enhance the overall contribution to the top line. During the quarter, Zee Studios released films like Maidaan and Mr. and Mrs. Mahi in Hindi. We believe that both the businesses have been displaying signs of gradual growth trajectory, enabling the country to nurture a well Diversified entertainment portfolio. During the quarter, our EBITDA margin has seen an improvement of 500 basis points year-on-year, and this is a testimony of our effective cost management in an otherwise challenging operating backdrop. We also witnessed an uptick in the profit after tax from continuing operations during the quarter to INR 1,257 million. On the balance sheet, our focused efforts have enabled us to further strengthen our liquidity and financial position. During the quarter, we have generated strong free cash flow, and our content inventory has also continued to decline, driven by optimized acquisition and movie releases. As the true potential of the media and entertainment sector gets unlocked with intensified competition and the advent of newer revenue streams, we remain guided by our strategic priorities in order to appropriately capitalize on the emerging growth opportunities. We are committed to achieve our targeted aspirations for the future, and our efforts in the subsequent three quarters will be focused towards enhancing our revenue profile with prudence and resilience at the forefront. The action-oriented steps implemented earlier have resulted in the company maintaining a firm grip on its costs, and we aim to continue posting a healthy margin improvement rate. As we move forward, we remain optimistic of recovery in the overall macroeconomic environment on the back of good monsoons and an oncoming festive quarter. On that note, I would also like to hand over the session to Mahesh to open up the Q&A round. I'm also accompanied by Mr. Mukund Galgali, who has recently assumed the responsibility of the financial vertical. Thank you very much. Over to you, Mahesh. Thanks, Mr. Goenka. Before we proceed to the Q&A session, I'd like to request everyone to please restrict yourself to a couple of questions. You can always join the queue back. With that, I request the moderator to take the discussion forward for Q&A. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks. My first question is on the fundraise. So, fundraise by TV broadcasting companies is quite rare. So wanted to understand deployment, where do you see and what are the timelines and what is the thought process behind this, in terms of doing it now? I would request Vikas to step in and answer that. So this fundraise was undertaken mainly, you know, to ensure availability of funds which can act as a growth capital for our growth plans, both organic as well as inorganic. As we speak, you know, the team is currently working on those plans. They are fine-tuning those plans, and very soon we'll be ready with our deployment plan. But that's a work in progress. The idea was to ensure a pool of capital at this stage so that we are ready not only for the shifting dynamics of the sector, but also the shifting dynamics in the competitive dynamics, which is, you know, undergoing right now. So that was the idea why we went for this fundraise, wanted to fortify our balance sheet, and very soon we'll be ready with our deployment plans. Also, we are working on that as of now. We have a broad sense of it, but, we hope, you know, just some more work is left on that front. Understood. Last question will be on overall competitive intensity. Overall competitive intensity, you can comment, and given consolidations happening between the two large players and currently regulatory approvals, et cetera, are happening. So my question is, one year down the line, when, say, all approvals come and most of the current properties go to the joint entity, how do you see costing pressure? How do you see pricing pressure? That would be one. And second is because of so much cost-cutting within the company, if you could comment on talent pool, how it is, plus how is the morale of the team? Because so many things happened in the company in the last one year. Merger got called off, then cost cutting, now margins are recovering, which is a good thing. Overall, if you could address the HR aspect, that would be useful. Sure, Amish. Punit here. So, you're right that a lot has happened in the company in the last 6-8 months, but we are working overtime to make sure that the morale of the organization remains upbeat. Of course, whenever there is this magnitude of correction that happens in the HR side, there will be some level of disappointment and fear that sets in. But as I stated, we are working overtime to ensure that remains upbeat and regular communication with the entire organization is taking place. I am personally, in fact, traveling to all the centers to make sure that I meet people on a regular basis to ensure that the organization is still behind them, and we will come out, emerge victorious in this timeline. Secondly, on the competitive landscape, my view, Abneesh, has always been that we have competed with the largest of the organizations in this market, in the media and entertainment market. By virtue of just two players coming together, while they will have a lot of synergistic benefits, which we also talked about when we were trying to do our merger, does not restrict or make us less, you know, capable of competing with them as a joint entity. So I think me and my team are pretty confident that they will continue to work on the entire portfolio and deliver on the expectations that you and the shareholders have from us. So, in terms of the team, while we've had some churn, as you would have seen, a large part of the churn has actually happened in the tech center, a large part of which was due to the fact that the platform has already reached a certain stage of operations. We think actually they have become a bit redundant, those people, and therefore it happened. On the television side and other facets, other sides, the talent, this thing has been pretty decent and most of the talent is still with us, and therefore we are confident on delivery on the business. Anybody wants to? No. So thanks, Question, Abhneesh. Yes, yes, it's answered. Thanks. That's all from my end. Thank you. Thanks, Abhneesh. Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Abhishek Kumar from JM Financial. Please go ahead. Hi, thanks for taking my question. My first question is on fundraise again. I was just curious about the, you know, FCCB route. Any logic or any rationale for selecting this instrument over any other instrument, because it exposes us to currency variations. So any thoughts on this? Yeah, hi. See, we went for the FCCB because we wanted a flexibility of drawing in funds over relatively a longer period of time. As I said, you know, the whole idea was to fortify our balance sheet and be ready with enough, enough resources at disposal. But, we would be very prudent in deploying, or we want to be very prudent in deploying these funds. An FCCB is an instrument which was giving us this flexibility of drawing in or having multiple drawdowns in line with our deployment plan over a longer period of time. And that was the reason why we selected this over other, instruments. There were other instruments which were giving us flexibility, but there were, limitations. You know, at the best, we could have got 18-36 months only out there. That was the reason why we went for FCCBs. Okay, that's helpful. Second question is on business. Punit, I mean, the worry is, while we are, you know, reducing costs, is there a fine line between, you know, cutting the fat and, and cutting into muscle, growth muscle of the company? You know, we have seen sequential decline in OTT revenue this time. I'm not sure if it is seasonal or it is because, you know, we are spending less on content, et cetera. So how should we balance, you know, margin expansion with, with our growth aspirations? So Abhishek, it's a combination of both what you said. You know, it's a sequential reduction in revenue because of the heavy nature of the events happening, during the quarter, like sports and the general elections, which have caused this to happen. As you know that we are a very heavy general entertainment-led network, including our OTT, is very general entertainment-led... and that's the reason that's happened. I can truly believe that we have not really cut into the muscle or the bone yet. We have only cut the fat, and if required, once we see that we need to fortify again by getting in talent, for the organization, I think we are capable enough to bring talent back, as and when needed, as and when we see the macroeconomic situation improve for the company and for the various verticals. Oh, just to add to what, Punit, mentioned, Abhishek, I think when you specifically look at digital and sequential decline you're referring to, keep in mind that we had a bit of, bump in Q4 because there was ILT20 and some of the other things, so that really aided there. Also, as Punit alluded in opening remarks, even sequentially, we've seen the number of paying subscribers, the engagement, et cetera, has gone up. So it's not something we're structurally concerned about from the health of business standpoint. It's just a phase, like we alluded, a couple of quarters back. We expect H1 to be soft because at this point in time, our priority is to get the unit economics and, cost base right. But as we go into the back end of the year, we are hopeful and confident that the growth will pick up even in the digital side of things. It's just a conscious choice we've made, and internal of the business in terms of both subscribers and engagement, it still remains very healthy. That's very helpful. Thank you, and good luck. Thank you, Abhishek. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jinesh Joshi. Sorry, Jinesh Joshi from Prabhudas Lilladher Private Limited. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, in the ZEE5 business, we have seen a considerable reduction in EBITDA losses. So where exactly have you seen the rationalization come through? I mean, apart from the manpower cost, which you mentioned. Has some bit of rationalization also happened on the content, technology or marketing side? And if you can comment how sustainable is this. And also a related follow-up is that, on the back of lower losses, we have also seen that growth has slowed down a bit. I obviously refer to the comments which you mentioned that back ended, the growth will be better. Is the digital business expected to see some kind of a growth in effect so as to ensure reduction in losses? So, Jignesh, just I'll take the second part first. As I just mentioned to Abhishek, that this is also seasonal in nature because of the events that were happening, like sports and the general election, et cetera. That's the reason you've seen some slowdown in the... And what even Mahesh was saying earlier, that Q4, we have sporting properties and we have events like recent awards, et cetera, on our network, which aid the revenue growth Q4. I would not read too much into that, as such. In terms of the cost that you talked about on the digital business, it is largely come on the manpower side. That is also from the tech center. And then marketing, based on whatever the needs are on the content that we are offering, and done on that basis. We have not taken the to cut the content requirement for ZEE5, but we are going to optimize the content requirement for ZEE5. That's what we are trying to do. Sure, good. And just one last question from my side. Has a full rationalization on the employee cost already happened? Because if I look at our Q1 number, the employee cost is down by about 13% to INR 25 crore. So is it expected to kind of rise a bit in the second half or is full rationalization already happened? So the largest part of the rationalization in terms of people has already happened. In terms of cost, I'll ask Mukund to step in and respond to that. Can you repeat the question, please, on the call? So my question was, on the employee cost side, has a full rationalization already happened, or are we going to see some kind of increase on the second half side, given the fact that we are expecting some back-ended recovery on the top-end front? So as Punit mentioned, a large part of the restructuring has been achieved. And we will always focus on, you know, maintaining an optimal structure to suit the business requirements and which will be an ongoing exercise. But having said that, a large part of the exercise is already achieved. Sure, sir. Thank you so much. Jinesh, just one last point. You also made a comment in your previous question about the sustenance of ZEE5, EBITDA reduction, to some extent, and, while Punit covered it, just to sum it up, look, when you think of ZEE5's trajectory from here on, there are two phases to think of. There is still, some bit of room which is left in the cost structure. And then the second phase starts, which is really the operating leverage growth-driven phase as the revenue accelerates back. So that's, kind of two levers as we think of, and that is where we believe that there is still going to be, room to further drive improvement in this line item. Be prepared, like we've guided you in past as well, for some quarter and quarter volatility, depending on how we respond to-... Certain seasonal factors, but we believe that there is still room for us to further drive improvement in ZEE5 when you really take a medium to long-term view of cost structure. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Jinesh. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Umang Mehta from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead. Hello. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on reducing ZEE5 losses. My question was on the core business. So if you exclude the ZEE5 losses, it seems like the core business EBITDA has declined by 10%. While I understand ad growth was negative, was there any other element as well which led to this decline? So there are two parts there, Umang, as you think this through. One, as you rightly alluded, linear business is quite exposed to operating leverage sensitivity around ad revenue, and that shows true. The second bit is a bit of mix, right? I think when you exclude digital, you're basically looking at residual business, which just doesn't have linear, it also has movies, right? And movies have, you know, depending on how they flow through over their life cycle, they make healthy margin, but for a period, depending on how you account for them, theatrical, et cetera, could cause volatility. So that's really what has happened, which is why the picture gets a bit muddled, but it's not something which is structurally different or structurally something which has deteriorated in linear. It's quite actually healthy, and like Punit alluded, as we will come out, I mean, the July, our viewership share is actually quite healthy and things are looking quite positive. Of course, the ad revenue sensitivity plays out, and then there is a bit of a mix change because of linear and movies. Understood. That's helpful. And the second one was on the FCCB. So, given that you have received approval from RBI, understanding was that, you would have to give some, drawdown schedule, to them. So broadly, could you share some details like the, deployment of funds, the drawdown schedule, the minimum block need to exercise the call option, and use of funds? Yeah. On that, just give us some time. You know, as we have said in the earlier part of this call, the team is working and fine-graining that particular plan of having the drawdown schedule finalized. So just give us some more time. We are working on it. We have quite a broad sense of where the opportunities are and where. And we have kind of earmarked those areas, but we will need just a couple of days more to finalize the deployment schedule. Understood. But just one clarification. On end use, there is no restriction in terms of RBI ECB norms, for you to acquire any company, right? Just clarifying that because, it seems like there's some regulation on ECB, but I'm not sure about FCCB. So FCCBs are governed in the same regulatory framework, in a way, Umang, so its ECB guidelines does apply. To that extent, yes, whatever the ECB framework says, we will have to operate within the realm of that framework and regulatory guidelines. Okay, nice. I will connect with you separately. Thank you. Thank you. Participants who wish to ask question, may please press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Arun Prasath from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is, again, once again, touching upon this competitive intensity, and... So, Punit, you mentioned about how you are prepared, but, so competition, especially the bigger one that we are talking about, can basically hurt you on three avenues. One is on the advertising. They can reduce the rates or mop up more of the- they can, they can dominate, or they can, they can, they can play more efficiently on distribution. And third is on the content and talent. Out of these three, which one you are most worried about, actually? Obviously, you will, you will, you will have confidence to tackle all this, but, according to you, which one you think, you know, which can, be, you know, they can play bigger in any of these avenues? Arun, my share, I'll take this. Punit has just stepped out. Okay. So look, I think between the three, we of course watch and study everything, but there's nothing we would lose sleep over or be overly concerned about. Let's take them one by one, right? Ad rate. Ad rate is a function of viewership, right? At the end of the day, if you have the viewership, you will get your corresponding rate, and you have your pockets of strength in terms of general entertainment, in terms of specific regional languages. So it really is a very micro conversation, channel to channel, genre to genre, language to language, and we are quite confident with the viewership share we have and the relevance we have in those markets. We will get our share of ad revenue. When you look back, in your channel checks and market channel checks, we've always commanded, revenue share ahead of our viewership share to that extent. That's really been the history, and that's really come because the construction of the viewership share is very relevant in terms of market to market, prime time, and so on. So that's on the ad share. On the distribution, again, it's basically a fair market for everyone. It's, you know, there is an equal playing field, and to that extent, we have trust in regulatory strength and, oversight that, you know, this will remain a fair playing field in that sense. So that, again, is something we're not, overly concerned about. And then the third question you asked about talent and content. Talent, Punit addressed in detail when he responded to Avnish's question. But on content, again, it really is genre to genre. We don't really compete aggressively in, let's say, sports or high budget ticket movies and so on and so forth. And if someone wants to be aggressive in that market, you know, it really doesn't hurt us. But when it really comes to making general entertainment across Hindi, across different genres, it's something our core strength, and we think within that ecosystem, given the deep relationships we have with producers, with content ecosystem, the ability to having done this over 20 years at a very frugal cost structure, will help, will keep us in very good stead. So, yes, I think we're watchful about competition. Regardless of this outcome, we've been watchful about competition for the last 20 years as we run the business. But, it's not something we are overly concerned about. Of course, we'll have to see as the competitive intensity unfold and respond to it if there's something which is really alarming, but that's really what our initial view is. Okay, Mahesh, I think, from what you have said, I think, what I can infer is that distribution is where probably you will have a tough fight. But the fundraise doesn't solve, even help you in fighting in that avenue. So once again, coming back to the fundraise, not very clear how the three problems, the three avenues, how the fundraise will solve any of this issue. Maybe it will create a buffer, but beyond that, any expectation from the fundraise, how it will help you in addressing these issues? No, I think it's, it's not necessarily true, Arun. So take an example of fundraise and take an example of the second point you made about distribution. If you take a view and, and deploy some of the funds a lot more on the digital side of it, actually, in digital, you short-circuit the distribution altogether, right? Because it allows you to go to a consumer directly, unlike what the linear world did it. So it's not necessarily true that you can't really make... Like I said, you can't really make it micro battle, sector to sector, and compete with it. Okay. Right. Right. Okay. Secondly, on this, on the ZEE5, you mentioned, the sequential reduction is seasonal, but, I understand our revenue mixes balance between ad and subscription. The seasonal impact should not be seasonally, it should not impact us, right? So are we saying our mix is much more balanced instead of subscription, maybe? Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't. I mean, when you say balanced, you're implying 50/50. I wouldn't say... I wouldn't give you the number, but I would only leave it with saying, look, you know, advertising is a reasonable part of the portfolio to that extent, so it... And ILT20 is a decent property. So some of those factors could cause volatility. That's one. And keep in mind that also every quarter-on-quarter, your mix changes, not just between AVOD and SVOD, which you alluded to. It could also change between customer mix, between B2B, B2C and all of it. So there are multiple factors which play out, and given you're talking of much smaller base, that kind of volatility of low single-digit kind of swings can come in on a sequential basis. Just last clarification, our most of the subscriber base in the annual plan or a monthly plan? Annual plan. Okay. Okay, thanks, Mahesh. All the best. Thank you. Thank you. you. The next question is from the line of Karan Taurani from Elara Capital. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for in the morning, sir. My question, there are two questions I have. One was on the regional- Your voice is... Sorry, your voice is echoing a bit. It's slightly unclear. Is it fine now? Yes, better. Yeah. So I have two questions. One was on the regional genre performance. So of course, we see acceleration in terms of ad revenue during the festive season. But do you also foresee potential market share gains in the regional genre? I mean, what is the update there in terms of competitive intensity and where you stand in the larger regional genres like Tamil, Telugu and the smaller ones such as Marathi, Bangla, Malayalam? Yeah. Okay. Yes, I think we've had, we've had decent momentum in regional markets, Karan. Like we've spoken, we've historically, we've spoken Marathi, we were focusing on, and Marathi has been consistently building upon that strength, as we look. Tamil had recovered as well and sort of solidifying its position. So generally in, I would say, the portfolio, there are bright spots in regional markets. There will always be a market which will go through a cycle, but beyond that, I think we're well positioned in most of those regional markets to take advantage of festive spending coming along. And, I think, like I, like Punit alluded, our July shares already seems very encouraging, and September, October, as you head into festive season, we feel quite good about it across the portfolio. And that applies to regional markets as well. And we continue to focus on each market in a very targeted manner in terms of making content changes or distribution adjustments and so on and so forth. So feel good about where the setup is heading into festive season across the regional portfolio as well. ... Yeah, and in terms of ad revenue, not asking for any kind of guidance, but you know, if you look at the other trends in mediums like frame and other put together, they've seen a big flip, you know, because of election and somewhere, you know, they are way ahead as compared to pre-COVID in terms of absolute numbers. TV is one segment, you know, which is kind of in a struggling phase, and specifically, you know, broadcasters in the D2C side. So say, on the near term, say, on the medium term basis, what is the kind of ad revenue that one would expect in a steady state for the Linear TV business? Of course, Disney would be separate, but from the Linear TV side, is it mid-single digit, high single digit? What's the kind of ad revenue that one should think in it? Karan, it's difficult to put a number, but I, like we've said before, we think, we strongly believe that there's still a reasonable headroom for the growth, on the linear side of portfolio, given that there is still, you know, sort of, fair bit of brand building, which is happening from large FMCG companies. Today, the kind of reach TV provides, with a 750 million plus, 800 million kind of reach versus, let's say, any digital avenue, makes TV very relevant in the brand building and overall spending. To that extent, when you layer that kind of, reach advantage and layer the relative penetration and cost of ownership in this country, we think there is, headroom for the TV revenues to grow at a healthy pace. Given where we are coming from, I'd not really put a number to it in terms of mid-single digit, high single digit, et cetera, but we think, wherever the industry growth is, given the kind of work we've done on our, sort of viewership share, we would, sort of continue to grow ahead of the market, in foreseeable future. Thank you, Mahesh. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Vora from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks. Mahesh, can you talk about the distribution industry landscape and how it is changing? How many cable and DTH subscribers do we have at an industry level now? How many have shifted to Free Dish? And, how is your linear paying subscriber base trending? Kunal, I mean, the numbers would vary little bit. We'll give you a high-level sense of it. I'm requesting Vikas- Yeah. to come in and address that. So they're around, you know, you talked about the... Let me start with the Free Dish. So they are around, given any report, they are close to 45 million Free Dish subscribers today. That's the FTA universe today. Over and above, there would be close to around 120-130 million paid subscribers. So this is the universe which we are looking at. There's still around, you know, pretty significant chunk of TV dark homes today, which are yet to be converted into TV. Now, you know, we need to see whether they directly—I mean, whether the graduation happened through TV and then to connected TVs or this straightaway jump to connected TVs. That's something which every broadcaster is, you know, working on today. But that, that's a general sense of how the subscribers in this country are stacked up. How about your customer base, paying customer base on the DTH side? How many is 120, 130 million are paying right now? Yeah, our reach in almost all the major channels which we broadcast is pretty much in line with all the other major broadcasters. So, it will be fair to say that we don't have a reach problem. You know, it varies from channel to channel, but thematically or overall, on an overarching, if I need to make an overarching statement, we pretty much, you know, our reach is more than satisfactory for all our, all our major channels. Second is on Free Dish. This number used to be about 20 million, maybe 4, 5 years back. It's now 45 million. Number seems to be increasing. How are you looking to address it? Because we've seen over the years, many flip-flops. You were on Free Dish, removed channels from Free Dish. But what's the strategy now to monetize your content on the Free Dish side? So I think, we've been out of this for last, more than couple of years now, Kunal, and I think, we've been consistent in what we've said. Look, our focus at this point in time to, strengthen and grow pay-TV ecosystem, because in our belief, sort of, payback, what you get is much higher on the pay-TV ecosystem side of things. And it's something which largely major broadcasters have sort of also, been, you know, sort of followed a similar strategy in last 2.5 years. Now, even on the Free Dish, you look at last few, quarters, that number has sort of stagnated, in that, sort of range. We continue to monitor this on an ongoing basis. So from a strategy standpoint, it's not something we've turned a blind eye on, or we have parked it forever. But at this point in time, our focus or our energies are really focused on growing the pay-TV ecosystem and taking, you know, our share out of that from revenues. Understood. And lastly, on Zee5, what should be the trajectory of losses from here? I mean, we've seen, significant, like, say, reduction in losses, but, is there a path to profitability? How many years, we might take to break even? And, well, like, what kind of improvement can we expect on an annual basis from here? Look, Kunal, we're not, we're not giving any guidance from a breakeven standpoint. But like we alluded, four quarters back, we alluded saying that Zee5 is already at its peak cost structure, and we have backed that, and demonstrated that quarter after quarter as we've got the losses lowered. With our vantage point where we sit, we think, as you look out, you know, from a longer term standpoint, and what I mean by longer term is not just quarter on quarter. But if you look out, let's say from where we are to where we would be three, four quarters out and where we would be another three, four quarters out, you would see this number continue to sort of trend down. We would keep some flexibility. The only reason we're not providing the guidance here, is we want to keep some flexibility to be able to respond, depending on how the competitive intensity plays out, depending on how our growth versus profitability objectives align, to be able to reinvest in certain areas a little bit more aggressively, and so on, so forth. But it suffices to say that with where you are, the kind of reduction you're seeing in this quarter, one, is sustainable. And second, from a directional standpoint, if anything, you should work with an assumption that medium to longer term, that loss number would continue to trend down. Got you. I'll let Nikhilesh add more slides. Nikhil? Kunal. Yeah. So, Kunal, I would just like to add to what Mahesh said, that, ZEE5 has positioned itself, you know, in terms of a niche content offering. And, as far as content goes, it has sort of established itself as, providing, a kind of content which it is unique. And we will continue to... While the costs will trend downwards, we will continue to invest wherever required if, there is adequate monetization opportunity. That will be, you know, a tactical call taken from time to time. And as you look to lower losses from here, do you see a higher opportunity coming from, increase in revenue, or is there, a potential to further reduce costs? I mean, our focus will be, of course, to look at, you know, expanding our revenue, and while we will always also keep a close watch on the costs as we go forward. That's it from my side. Thank you. That's right. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, the next question will be the last question. The next question is from the line of Sameer Deshpande from Fairdeal Investment. Please go ahead. Hello. Am I audible? Yes, sir. Yes, Sameer, please go ahead. Yeah. Congratulations on the good set of numbers. And, despite cautious commentary in Q4, we have really did well. And, as the good thing is you mentioned about the operating losses of Zee5, which have been contained significantly, and going forward, they are also sustainable. So that is definitely a good thing going forward in improving our operating margins and for our targets. So I had one question regarding the in the notes on accounts, it is note number eight, where there was an investigation committee which was appointed, independent investigation committee, under the chairmanship of former judge of Allahabad High Court. So have they completed the investigation? Mr. Deshpande, the committee is in process of, you know, completing their work. I mean, they have appointed experts to review, and that work is on, and as soon as it is completed and placed before the board, it will be, you know, made available. It will be announced. Okay. So, but I think it is about now, about six, seven months. I think it was in February we had. So it is almost nearing completion now? It's at an advanced stage, Mr. Deshpande. Okay. At the moment, we can confirm that. Regarding the fundraise, as you mentioned, that the things are yet to be terms, et cetera, is not yet disclosed, but, and it will be done in tranches as and when you feel there are opportunities. So we are not going to raise the money upfront, maybe INR 1,000 crore or et cetera, because we already have some 1,300-odd crore of cash. So any fundraise at this point is not necessary unless there is any inorganic opportunity or any big outflow. Is this correct? So I think, Mr. Deshpande, like... Yeah, I mean, without getting into specifics, it's fair to presume that, yes, like you said, we would not really be getting the money upfront at this point, without very clear line of sight, and that was one of the consideration which went into how, what's the best way to structure the fundraise and so on. So yes, it will be in tranches, like you said. The last question is, with subscription rates, where under 23, I think it is, we were not allowed to raise under bouquet, et cetera, so there is some something in the pipeline which is expected to allow us to raise our subscription levels we want. Is there any such proposal before TRAI? So now, like we alluded before, now the policy framework is being quite conducive in terms of how we think of pricing. Of course, heading into election, we had sort of held up some of the price increases, which we are now starting to implement back and so forth. So that's really where, you know, what Punit mentioned in his opening remarks, that we think linear subscription would continue to sort of grow at a inflation-linked kind of pace as we go forward. Right. That really is a function of, you know, us taking, you know, periodic sort of, price increases to offset our cost, from an inflation standpoint. That will be a much-needed respite, because the pricing had been controlled for a long, substantially longer period. So that should definitely help us also increasing our margins. Sure. Yes, and as we make those considerations, we'd also balance both pricing and churn objectives, because it's, you know, you'll have to look at effectively. So that's really the balancing act we play as we make those choices, Mr. Deshpande. Yes. Thank you, and all the best. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Mahesh Pratap Singh, Head of Investor Relations, for closing comments. Thank you, everyone, for your interest, and thanks for joining us today. Should you have any further queries, or if your question was unanswered, please feel free to reach out to us. We'll be happy to engage. Thank you again, and look forward to speaking to you again soon, next quarter.