MUMBAI: Star India witnessed a nosedive of 93 per cent in profit at Rs 287 crore during FY18 as compared to Rs 554 crore during FY17. This was apparently due to higher programming costs, which went up from Rs 4,121.6 crore in FY17 to Rs 4,887.3 crore during FY18, according to a report by Economic Times quoting business intelligence platform, Tofler.

As per the financial data accessed by Tofler, the company’s advertising promotional expenses fell 6.8 per cent at Rs 691 crore from Rs 738 crore in the corresponding period. The company saw a rise of 7.8 per cent in employees benefit expenses to Rs 895 crore.

The company’s total expenses grew by 12.2 per cent from Rs 7,992 crore in FY17 to Rs 8,974 crore in FY18. Revenue from operations saw a slight increase of 3.6 per cent to Rs 9,148 crore from Rs 8,827 crore in FY17.

The broadcaster is planning to launch another regional channel to cater to the Bengali audience i.e. Star Sports 1 Bangla on 5 March 2019. 

The broadcaster recently released its rate card after amendments on 21 February 2019 and added the channels in several bouquets. The company has now added new sports and English movies channels in existing packages.

The company has also decided to broadcast IPL Season 12 live in eight languages, including Hindi and English, across nearly twenty Star India Network screens. The other languages are Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi and Malayalam.