1. At a Glance
There are media companies. Then there are companies that own TV channels, websites, YouTube armies, finance portals, cricket blogs, regional news, celebrity gossip, and somehow still struggle to make meaningful profits.
Network18 Media & Investments is that strange beast.
This is a company that reaches more than 700 million TV viewers, 360 million digital users, 450 million social followers, and generated more than 65 billion YouTube views in FY26. It owns or controls brands like CNBC-TV18, CNN-News18, Moneycontrol, Firstpost, News18, Forbes India and even has stakes in BookMyShow and JioStar.
Yet despite this gigantic empire, FY26 consolidated PAT was only ₹155 crore.
That means investors are paying a market cap of around ₹5,607 crore for a company earning ₹155 crore, implying a P/E ratio of roughly 36 times based on FY26 earnings. But if you look at trailing numbers shown on screeners including exceptional adjustments, the stock still looks absurdly expensive at 153 times earnings.
This is where the detective story begins.
Network18 has spent the last few years going through more corporate reshuffling than a Bollywood casting couch. Viacom18 exited. JioCinema shifted. Disney-Reliance joint venture happened. TV18 merged. E18 merged. News18 Marathi got fully acquired. Eenadu Television stopped being an associate. Promoter holding dropped from 75% to 56.89% after share allotments.
The company looks less like a clean media business and more like someone emptied an entire Reliance group drawer into one listed entity.
But beneath all this chaos, there are signs of improvement.
Q4 FY26 revenue rose nearly 10% YoY to ₹616 crore while EBITDA jumped to ₹30 crore from ₹19 crore. EBITDA margin improved to 4.9% from 3.4%. The company also outperformed the TV news industry in advertising demand, with Network18 inventory consumption growing 4.5% while the industry reportedly fell by over 10%.
Still, debt remains high at ₹3,288 crore. Interest coverage is barely 1.18 times. Cash flow from operations in FY26 was negative ₹28 crore. Debtor days exploded from 35 to 119 days.
So what exactly is this company now?
Is it a news empire? A digital media turnaround? A Reliance side project? Or simply a complicated balance sheet hiding behind massive viewership numbers?
That is what makes Network18 fascinating.
2. Introduction
Network18 has become one of those companies where the story changes every year.
A few years ago, it was all about TV channels and news broadcasting. Then came digital media. Then came OTT dreams. Then came Viacom18, JioCinema, Disney merger headlines, and suddenly investors needed a flowchart just to understand who owns what.
The big event in FY25 and FY26 was the deconsolidation of Viacom18. Once Viacom18 stopped being a subsidiary in December 2024, Network18’s revenue collapsed from ₹6,888 crore in FY25 to ₹2,121 crore in FY26.
At first glance, this looks horrible.
Sales down 69%. Massive decline. Media apocalypse.
But that is not the full picture.
The decline happened because the company structure changed. Viacom18 and related businesses moved out, so the old and new numbers are not comparable.
On a like-to-like basis, the remaining Network18 news and digital business actually showed decent stability.
Q4 FY26 revenue was ₹616 crore versus ₹561 crore in Q4 FY25. Annual revenue grew 4.7% YoY to ₹2,121 crore. Excluding the weak election-linked base in Q1, management says revenue growth was closer to 7%.
The bigger positive is that the company is becoming much more focused.
Now Network18 is mainly a news, business media and digital information business.
That means CNBC-TV18, CNN-News18, News18 regional channels, Moneycontrol, Firstpost, Forbes India and digital assets are becoming the real centre of gravity.
This also means the company is no longer directly carrying the full burden of giant entertainment losses from sports rights, OTT wars and expensive streaming content.
Which is good, because otherwise the balance sheet would have looked like a Netflix account after IPL season.
But even after the restructuring, the company still has a lot to prove.
Margins remain weak.
Debt is high.
Cash flows are inconsistent.
And despite being India’s largest digital news ecosystem, monetisation still feels far behind the scale of its audience.
The company can reach 360 million people every month, but investors are still waiting for it to reach sustainable profitability.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Network18 is basically India’s media supermarket.
If a person wakes up and watches CNBC-TV18, checks Moneycontrol during office hours, scrolls News18 during lunch, watches Firstpost clips on YouTube at night and books a movie ticket on BookMyShow over the weekend, there is a good chance Network18 touched that person at least five times.
The business has four major engines.
First is TV news.
This includes CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz, CNN-News18, News18 India and 14 regional channels. The company says it has around 13.8% all-India news viewership share and remains India’s largest TV news network.
Second is digital media.
This includes Moneycontrol, Firstpost, News18.com, CNBCTV18.com and other news portals. Moneycontrol alone has over 1 million paid subscribers, making it India’s biggest digital news subscription platform.
Third is adjacent businesses.
The company has launched Creator18, fintech products, lending marketplaces, gaming content, AI-driven search and hyperlocal content.
Fourth is investments.
Network18 owns stakes in businesses like BookMyShow, JioStar and Eenadu Television.
The problem is that while the audience scale is massive, media monetisation is not easy.
TV advertising depends on the economy.
Digital ads depend on Google and Meta algorithms.
Subscription growth depends on convincing Indians to pay for content.
And YouTube views are great for ego, but not always great for margins.
So
