1. At a Glance
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the longest-running show on Indian stock markets —Dish TV: The Never-Ending Loss Saga. With amarket cap of ₹799 croreand ashare price of ₹4.34, Dish TV has officially graduated from being a household name to being a household warning. Once the king of satellite dishes and living room entertainment, it’s now the punchline of 3.76 lakh investors who are learning the hard way that “DTH” might stand forDown The Hill.
For theSeptember 2025 quarter, sales crashed26.4% QoQ to ₹291 crore, while losses ballooned to a staggering₹133 crore, marking a255% decline. The company’snet worth is negative, promoters are clinging to a4.05% holding, and SEBI fines are raining down like monsoon on a leaky dish antenna. Meanwhile, competitors like Sun TV and Zee are still making money; Dish is making… apologies.
If you’re one of the3.76 lakh shareholders, you’re officially part of India’s most depressing group chat — “Stuck With Dish TV Since HD Became Obsolete.”
2. Introduction
Remember when Dish TV wasthename you saw plastered on every terrace in India? Now, it’s the stock you see plastered in every “avoid list.” Incorporated in 1988, Dish TV was once a pioneer in Direct-to-Home (DTH) television — bringing channels, cricket, and cinema into homes long before OTT was even a word. Fast forward to FY26, and it’s now stuck between declining subscriptions, endless litigations, and SEBI notices that arrive more frequently than dividend cheques (which, by the way, haven’t existed for years).
In the age of Netflix and JioCinema, Dish TV is trying to sell you a set-top box with nostalgia as the main value proposition. The company’s Android-based “SMRT Hub” sounds fancy, but when your OPM collapses from52% in 2022 to 11% in Sep 2025, it’s clear the only thing getting “smarter” is the competition.
Their OTT experimentWatchowants to be the next Hotstar, but viewers have responded with a collective “nah bro, already got five subscriptions.” The management’s new initiative,Dish TV Smart+, now bundles OTT platforms with DTH — basically Netflix with a side of nostalgia. But when revenues are down 22% year-on-year and net worth is buried deeper than a broken dish cable, it’s clear this is not a “turnaround story” — it’s a “turn off and move on” story.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Dish TV’s business model can be summed up as: “We connect people to entertainment — just not our shareholders to profits.” The company earns fromsubscription services (23%),infrastructure support (53%),marketing and promotional fees (16%), and someperformance incentives and ads.
Sounds diverse, right? Until you realizeinfrastructure supportis mostly internal billing via its subsidiaryDish Infra Services Pvt Ltd, andadscontribute barely2%of revenue.
The DTH business relies on three brands:
- DishTV:The OG satellite hero of early 2000s.
- d2h:Acquired from Videocon; now feels like a relic.
- Zing Super:A budget option for regional audiences — the “Sasta Netflix” of Odisha and Bengal.
- Watcho App:Their OTT super app offering everything from Hotstar to Chaupal in one bundle — imagine a buffet where half the dishes are missing.
So while Dish is still connecting 1.5 crore viewers to entertainment, the stock is connecting 3.76 lakh investors to frustration.
And here’s the real kicker — the company now says it willmove away from set-top boxes within a year.Translation: “We’re quitting our core business before the core business quits us.”
4. Financials Overview
Quarterly Results (₹ crore)
| Metric | Sep 2025 (Latest Qtr) | Sep 2024 (YoY Qtr) | Jun 2025 (Prev Qtr) | YoY % | QoQ % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 291 | 396 | 329 | -26.5% | -11.6% |
| EBITDA | 32 | 145 | 73 | -77.9% | -56.1% |
| PAT | -133 | -37 | -95 | -259% | -40% |
| EPS (₹) | -0.72 | -0.20 | -0.51 | -260% | -41% |
Commentary:Revenue is falling faster than the promoter’s interest in running the company. Operating margins have collapsed from37% YoYto11%, proving that the only thing going “up” is the list of unpaid dues. EBITDA is barely ₹32 crore, while losses continue to widen like India’s broadband coverage map.
If this were a TV show, the episode title would be:Dish TV FY26 – The Great Indian Meltdown.
5. Valuation Discussion – Fair Value Range
Let’s talk valuation, though at this point it’s like valuing a broken set-top box.
- EPS (TTM): ₹ -3.67
- Current Price:₹ 4.34
- Stock P/E:Negative (because, well, negative profits)
- EV/EBITDA:1.92 (which sounds cheap — until you remember the EBITDA is evaporating faster than audience loyalty).
Fair Value Range (Educational Only):Based on peer multiples (average P/E 21x for profitable broadcasters), Dish TV’s negative EPS means even a 5x multiple values it between₹0 and ₹3per share.
So yes, the current ₹4.34 is pure optimism — or maybe just inertia.
Disclaimer: This fair value range is for educational purposes only and is not investment advice.
6. What’s Cooking – News, Triggers, Drama
Where do we begin? FY25–26 for Dish TV reads like a daily soap:
- Fines:NSE and BSE slapped multiple penalties — ₹4.6 lakh, ₹11.3 lakh — for Regulation 17/19 non-compliances. They’re now on first-name basis with SEBI’s penalty department.
- Litigation:The company is locked in a₹42.19 crore tax dispute, with appeals filed in October 2025.
- Boardroom chaos:Frequent regulatory notices, director reappointments, and resignations make the AGM minutes more dramatic than a K-serial cliffhanger.
- SEBI settlement:On Nov 14, 2025, Dish TV quietly paid a settlement to close another governance issue.
- Business shift:The “Smart+” initiative hopes to merge OTT + DTH —
