Media scrips attracted renewed buying interest following their attractive valuations.

Toppers in this category were Zee Telefilms (up 1.36% to Rs 74.65), Padmalaya Telefilms (up 14.63% to Rs 59.55), Creative Eye (up 8.46% to Rs 10.90), Tips Industries (up 3.65% to Rs 35.50), Pritish Nandy (up 4.20% to Rs 21.10), Mukta Arts (up 3.40% to Rs 54.70), Balaji Telefilms (up 3.16% to Rs 62), Sri Adhikari Brothers (up 3.20% to Rs 56.50) and Adlabs (up 1.75% to Rs 46.60).

The market is deeming these scrips as value picks now, after they were beaten down in the recent past. Buying seems to have come in mainly from operators. Funds, in fact, have not been active here. While most other sectors have been happy about the budget, not much came in by way of sops for the media sector. The only likely benefit manifested in the reduction in customs duty on equipment related to broadcasting and cinema.

Analysts feel this measure will help in improvement of broadcasting infrastructure and encourage up-linking facilities from India. Zee TV and Sri Adhikari Brothers will gain from that. There has been a reduction in peak customs duty in the budget to 25% from 30%. This is expected to bring down the cost of imported set-top boxes only marginally.

Meanwhile, the budget has been positive for music companies in particular, though. Excise duty has been removed on pre-recorded audio CDs from the existing 16%. This will make auto CDs even cheaper for consumers. More importantly, it will curb music piracy. Today, one of the biggest problems for the music industry is containing sales of pirated versions. Saregama and Tips Industries are likely to benefit from this provision.

In the last one month, the 32 Entertainment and Media companies lost 15.5% or Rs 846 crore (Rs 8.46 billion) in market capitalisation to Rs 4,611.3 crore (Rs 46.11 billion) from Rs 5,457.8 crore (Rs 54.57 billion).

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