Media stocks · Micro cap · NSE
Network18 Media & Investments Limited is India's largest media powerhouse, operating trusted news brands across TV, digital, and print. It boasts a wide linguistic footprint and a comprehensive product portfolio, including leading English and Hindi news channels, regional news, and digital platforms like Moneycontrol and News18.com.
full bear SMA stack · SMA20 -6.7% / mo · MACD + · near 52W low · sector +12.7pp vs Nifty 500 (3M)
Latest FPI flow is positive, but a second consecutive positive fortnight is still required. View sector evidence
Adjusted completed-session prices, rebased to 100
Weak fundamentals, management evidence is still limited to a financial-only Trust Lite signal, price trend is neutral, and recent execution is weak.
Fundamental lens: valuation, quality, growth, balance sheet, and cash flow.
Revenue +10.3% · PAT -125.5% YoY
Price trend and sector-relative-strength timing.
Legacy margin-of-safety estimate; the revised evidence label remains in shadow validation.
Financial-only signal; management claim evidence is not sufficient yet.
Fundamentals, quarterly history, margins, returns and balance-sheet evidence
PAT -126% YoY · margin compression · Rev +10% YoY
| Metric | This quarter | YoY | QoQ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ₹516 Cr | +10.3% | -16.2% |
| EBITDA | ₹8 Cr | +100.0% | -73.3% |
| Operating margin | 1.4% | +50 bps | -350 bps |
| PAT | ₹-38 Cr | -125.5% | NDF |
| PAT margin | -7.4% | -3920 bps | -249 bps |
NDF means not disclosed in the current structured filing feed. It is intentionally not treated as zero.
Updated 20/10/2026
Trend interpretation, Stage 2, relative strength, volume and indicator evidence
Signals are conflicting — long-term trend down. RSI 44. Wait for confirmation.
Mechanical read from the price + indicator series above. Not a recommendation — technical setups can reverse without warning, especially around earnings and macro events.
U-Score 14 · legacy U-Score band OVERVALUED · valuation evidence and comparable companies
Top U-Score contributors and drags from the latest stored fundamentals.
For this sector, IndiaPulse uses a blended lens rather than relying on a single valuation ratio.
This shows the stored score trend when snapshots exist, and also compares the latest stored nightly score with a live recompute from current fundamentals and price.
12 stored score snapshots. Latest stored move: -1 points.
Business-comparable peers in Media — ranked by industry, sub-sector, theme-tag overlap, market cap, and U-Score similarity. Green cells mark the best available peer metric in this table.
Growth engines, risks, management commitments and evidence-backed delivery
Q1FY26 revenue declined 4% YoY due to a high base from election-linked revenue, while EBITDA improved to Rs. 4 cr from Rs. 2 cr YoY, amidst a weak advertising environment.
The company's standalone revenue saw a YoY decline in Q1FY26, attributed to a high base and a weak advertising environment. While EBITDA improved marginally, the flat subscription revenue over the last five years raises concerns about monetizing its extensive digital reach and market dominance. The thesis is under stress due to revenue pressures and challenges in a critical revenue stream.
Moneycontrol is India’s No.1 ‘Fintelligence’ platform with 70 MN+ monthly unique visitors. News18.com and Firstpost offer a full suite of digital news platforms.
Moneycontrol Pro has 10L+ paying subscribers. New premium products like CNBC TV18 Access and Moneycontrol Super Pro are being built.
Strong positions in Marathi (#1), Gujarati (#1), Bengali (#2), Kannada (#2), and most state-focused Hindi channels are among the top 2.
Holds 6.3% stake in JioStar, 39% in BookMyShow, and 24.5% in Eenadu TV, some of India’s biggest media brands.
Introduced CNBC TV18 Access, Moneycontrol Super Pro, and CNBC TV18 Prime, offering exclusive content and actionable insights.
Dominates English Business News (~80% market share), is India’s No.1 English News Channel, and No.1 Hindi News Channel.
Boasts ~300 MN monthly digital reach, 150 MN weekly TV reach, and 7 BN+ monthly video views on social platforms.
Holds significant stakes in JioStar (6.3%), BookMyShow (39%), and Eenadu TV (24.5%), diversifying its media presence.
An overall weak advertising environment over the last few quarters is putting pressure on revenue growth.
Subscription revenue, a critical revenue stream, has been flat over the last 5 years.
Q1FY26 revenue declined 4% YoY on a high base which had election-linked revenue.
Revenue growth is sensitive to the 'overall weak advertising environment', indicating reliance on cyclical ad spending.
Despite significant digital reach, 'subscription revenue, a critical revenue stream, being flat over the period' suggests challenges in monetizing premium content.
Issuer guidance and extracted claims are tracked against later reported outcomes. Treat these as management statements, not IndiaPulse forecasts.
The financial data provided spans Q1FY24, Q1FY25, and Q1FY26, making Year-over-Year comparison the most appropriate to assess performance trends across fiscal periods. The company also explicitly references YoY changes and a high base from the prior year.
~300 MN (Comscore Total Digital Population Report, Mar-Jun’25)
150 MN (BARC India, Week 25’25-28’25)
~80% (BARC, Wk 28’25)
10L+ paying subscribers
Management is 'building for tomorrow' with new-age products like CNBC TV18 Access, Moneycontrol Super Pro, and CNBC TV18 Prime for new-age audiences.
News18.com is creating a clear identity for itself as a 'video-first platform with global coverage'.
| Checkpoint | Current evidence | What to verify next |
|---|---|---|
| Advertising Revenue Growth | Weak advertising environment, Q1FY26 revenue declined 4% YoY. | Signs of recovery in advertising spending and its impact on revenue growth. |
| Subscription Revenue Growth | Flat over the last 5 years. | Growth in paying subscribers for Moneycontrol Pro and uptake of new premium subscription products. |
| EBITDA Margin | EBITDA of Rs. 4 cr in Q1FY26. | Sustained positive EBITDA and expansion of operating margins as advertising environment improves or new revenue streams scale. |
Verification checkpoints are IndiaPulse research interpretation, not investment advice.
Trust asks: does management behaviour match later outcomes? Higher is better, but confidence and evidence depth matter as much as the number.
Limited evidence: Claim history is still being built. It ranks around the 3rd percentile of the scored universe and 5th percentile within Media. Main check: financial discipline is weak at 32/100.
This is a financial-behaviour screen, not a claim-tested management reliability verdict.
Financial behaviour is scored, but management claims do not yet have enough outcome checks.
overall median 67 · Media: 5th pctile, median 63 · Micro: 1st pctile, median 73
10 documents have extracted text, but claim history is not strong enough yet.
0 claims extracted · No contradicted claim yet
Read Trust alongside U-Score, result consistency, and technical trend. A cheap stock with weak Trust needs a larger margin of safety; a high Trust score does not make an expensive stock attractive by itself.
Read low sub-scores as due-diligence warnings, not automatic sell signals.
Trust Lite uses financial behaviour only. Prefer claim-tested Trust when enough concall claims have later outcomes.
Latest exchange and company disclosures found within the past two years.
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