BENGALURU, May 17Reuters India39;s Zee Entertainment Enterprises reported a quarterly profit on Friday, compared with a loss a year earlier, helped by strong demand for advertising and a fall in expenses.

The company posted a profit of 133.5 million rupees 1.60 million from a yearago loss of 1.96 billion rupees.

Domestic advertising revenue for the quarter rose nearly 11 yearonyear, driven by the continued recovery in the macro advertising environment and spending pickup by FMCG fastmoving consumer goods clients, Zee said in a filing with exchanges.

The company39;s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization margins expanded to 9.7 from 7.2 a year earlier.

Total income grew about 3 to 21.85 billion rupees, while overall expenses fell about 2, primarily due to a decline in programming and technology costs.

Sony had scrapped its 10 billion merger with Zee in January, ending a deal that would have created an Indian TV juggernaut with more than 90 channels across sports, entertainment and news.

Zee had, since then, announced a slew of measures to cut costs and reduce losses in its business, including cutting 15 of its workforce.

Operationwise, Zee has done a reasonable job with tariff order price hikes and advertisement revenue growth, said Karan Taurani, media analyst at Elara Capital.

The company said it took a restructuringrelated charge of 219.7 million rupees during the quarter.

Will see most of onetime higher costs towards implementing the…