Proactive cost control measures implemented by Balaji Telefilms helped them stem their losses in the lockdown quarter. Their OTT platform, ALTBalaji remains one of the top 5 paid apps in the country. Nachiket Pantvaidya, Group Chief Operating Officer at Balaji Telefilms and CEO ALTBalaji is in conversation with CNBC-TV18.

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While giving future trajectory he said, “We were expecting to breakeven in the January, February and March quarter of this financial year. Pre COVID we were expecting this breakeven to happen in October, November and December, but because our production schedules were delayed because of the pandemic impact now we are looking to breakeven in January, February and March.”

Talking about the growth he said, “In terms of growth if you see the same quarter last financial year we had a direct revenue stream of 6.7 crore that has grown to something like 12 crore in this quarter so we are doubling our direct subscription.”

He further added, “We are seeing a very good trajectory for ALTBalaji especially because tier II and tier III markets have opened up for us during the pandemic and that has got us a whole lot of new subscribers without having to spend a lot of marketing money to acquire.”

When asked how will they be able to continue this kind of space he said, “The acquisition pace will be very high because now the markets have opened up. The real question is that can we retain these subscribers, will they churn out and the reason why I am putting that out-front is that if we have to produce new shows for these subscribers to be on the platform. Therefore the race is on for us to produce more and more shows. We are confident that we will launch close to 25 shows in the remaining part of the year starting this month itself which is probably 50 percent more than a usual clip.”

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