DTV to invest more, despite losses

Dialog Television (DTV), despite making losses last years, is gearing to further invest in the operation, according to a top official in the company. The company made a net loss of Rs.788.53 million last year, while recording a revenue of Rs.722.45 million. "It is a financial loss, but we see our bottom line from a triple bottom line perspective, which is financial, technical and social," Nushad Perera CEO, DTV told The Sunday Times FT.

He explained that the financial aspect is where the company will look at improving profit, which the technical aspect will be where it will 'build the industry'. "We want to give the consumers state of the art equipment, while developing the mobile TV market," Perera said.

He noted that the social bottom line perspective is where company makes sure that the content is in line with the values of Sri Lankans. "We decided to remove Fashion TV because of this reason and also Animax, which displays violent cartoons, while creating the country's first multi religious channel," he added.

He noted, "Doing all this means it is going to hit our financial bottom line, but firms that only look at the financial bottom lines will not last long," Perera added further that it is the same theory as the GSM network Dialog invested in some years ago, which has paid dividends to the company down the line.

Dialog acquired satellite pay television operator Communique Broadband Networks (Pvt) Ltd and CBN Sat (Pvt) Ltd for Rs 532.8 million last year, through their subsidiary, Asset Media. Perera noted that DTV is a long term investment, but a significantly low investment of US $ 10 million in Sri Lanka compared to the US $ 600 million by the parent company, Dialog Telecom. "We are the single pay TV operator in the country. As at next week we will hit 100,000 subscribers and the total market right now is 110,000 subscribers," he added.

“I feel that the market can have more players, because entertainment is limited in Sri Lanka and there is a demand for entertainment. A cinema ticket for a two hour movie is roughly Rs.250. We provide 1200 hours of entertainment for Rs.500. There is a large market in the country for good quality entertainment. This is what DTV is tapping," he added.