Aided by the revenues from the cricket World Cup telecast rights, Sony Entertainment Television India is expected to close the year with a Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) revenue.
The company's revenue in the last financial year ended March 31, 2002, was a Rs 460 crore (Rs 4.60 billion).
"We are expecting to close the year with a Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) revenue. A major contribution is from the Cricket World Cup revenues," said Kunal Das Gupta, chief executive officer, Set India, which is part of the Sony Pictures Entertainment.
He also said that the company is expected to make margins to the tune of around 20-25 per cent from the ICC cricket telecast rights it has secured for seven years.
"Cricket telecast on SET has received substantial pick up. Telecast and the associated programmes would help us make this," Das Gupta said.
SET has reportedly paid $255 million to bag the seven-year contract to telecast various ICC cricket tournaments including two World Cups.
Besides, the company also expects that about 20 per cent of the current financial year's revenue would come from channel distribution business, while the majority of the revenue would be from World Cup cricket telecast.
"The distribution revenue has seen a substantial jump in the last 12 months. Cricket World Cup is one reason but the addition of channels to the bouquet and additional programming promotions that we are doing has helped us in this," Das Gupta said.
The bouquet distributes channels like Sony, Set Max, Discovery, HBO, AXN, Animal Planet, besides, the two NDTV news channels.
"We have good mix of channels to offer and are looking at some more options," Das Gupta said.
On asked about Set's initial public offering plans, he said, "We want an IPO but the issue is that of the time. We are looking at various options."
Besides, SET is in a restructuring mode both in Singapore and India and may come as a precursor to the Indian IPO. "The business restructuring is underway," he said.
On the response from the cricket World Cup telecast, he said that is has been received well with the advertisers as well as viewers with the opening match attracting very high viewership.
