Essel Group company, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) today posted 13.28 per cent decline in its consolidated net profit at Rs 130.16 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, 2011.

In the same quarter of the previous fiscal, the company’s net profit was Rs 150.10 crore, ZEEL said in a filing to the BSE.

For the three months ended June 30, 2011, the company’s consolidated sales increased 3.14 per cent to Rs 698.30 crore compared with 676.99 crore in the same quarter of 2010—11.

“During the quarter, we have seen some pullback in ad spends. It is encouraging to see that continued digitisation is reducing our reliance on advertising revenues as there is robust build-up in subscription revenue stream,” the ZEEL Chairman, Mr Subhash Chandra, said in a statement.

The company’s advertising revenues increased 0.5 per cent during the quarter to Rs 378.74 crore (Rs 376.91 crore).

However, with the onset of festival season, the company is expecting to see normalcy in advertising spends.

ZEEL’s subscription revenues, however, increased 16.7 per cent during the first quarter of the current financial year to Rs 305.09 crore compared with Rs 261.42 crore in the same quarter last fiscal.

Mr Chandra said the company remains committed to deliver high quality content to its viewers across genres.

“Our investments in the sports genre have continued during the quarter,” he added.

During the quarter, the company announced setting up of MediaPro Enterprise India, a 50:50 joint venture of Zee Turner and Star Den Media Services, for combined distribution of TV channels.

The company also announced a share buyback programme entailing an outgo of up to Rs 700 crore. It proposes to buy back a minimum of 1.26 crore equity shares from existing shareholders other than the promoters.

The ZEE scrip was trading at Rs 127.85, up 2.61 per cent from its previous close on the BSE.

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