India's Adani-owned NDTV Q2 profit falls amid advertising woes

BENGALURU (Reuters) - India's New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV), part of the Adani Group, reported a nearly 51% drop in second quarter profit on Monday, as businesses cut back on advertising spending in the face of rising interest rates.

Consolidated net profit was 59.1 million rupees ($710,803.00) in the three months to Sept. 30, compared with 120.1 million rupees a year earlier, it said in an exchange filing.

Indian broadcasters are grappling with slowing advertising spending as businesses clamp down on discretionary investments to rein in costs amid high inflation and aggressive interest rate hikes.

Still, the company rebounded from a loss in April-June.

Revenue from operations fell nearly 10% to 955.5 million rupees in the September quarter.

The broadcaster is the first among its peers to report quarterly results. Rival TV18 Broadcast and its unit Network18 will report their earnings later this week.

Another competitor Zee Entertainment Enterprises will report next month.

Shares of NDTV fell as much as 7.2% after the results. The shares had fallen over 8% during the quarter, as opposed to a more-than-30% jump in the Nifty Media index.

NDTV and other listed Adani-owned companies have seen their shares battered since a U.S. short-seller, earlier this year, accused the group of improperly using offshore tax havens and stock manipulation. Adani Group had rejected the allegations.

($1 = 83.1454 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Varun Vyas in Bengaluru; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil)