MUMBAI: Star India’s bet with the Indian Premier League (IPL) seems to have made a dent in its pocket for the financial year ending March 2019. The company reported a loss of Rs 1216.13 crore as against a profit of Rs 287.69 crore a year ago, according to a report by Economic Times.

Star India booked IPL expenses of Rs 4000 crore. Even though the company’s revenue increased by 35 per cent, it was hit by the IPL expenses.

Economic Times also quoted a Tofler report which indicated that Star India’s total revenue from operations was Rs 12,314 crore in FY19 which was Rs 9149 crore a year ago. Ad revenue was up by 49 per cent while distribution revenue saw a hike of 9 per cent.

The total expenditure was up by 58 per cent, mainly due to a 66 per cent increase in programming and operating cost, 34 per cent higher employee cost and 57 per cent hike in marketing cost.  While the company has high hopes from the future of Hotstar, currently it also contributed to the losses. IT reported a net loss of Rs 558.38 crore showing revenue of Rs 1112.74 crore.

FY2019 was also the first year when Star India had both TV and digital rights to the IPL.

As if this wasn’t enough, Star India also took a hit in its regional business. It saw a 9 per cent drop in net profit from Rs 298.22 crore to Rs 271.85 crore. The regional business revenue was up by 11 per cent touching Rs 1445.10 crore.

The company recently saw the exit of managing editor Sanjay Gupta, who has moved on to Google India.