RTL Group “good start to the year”
May 8, 2014
RTL Group says advertising markets continued to show signs of recovery in the first quarter of 2014. With the exceptions of Germany which was estimated to be stable and France which was estimated to be down 2.0 per cent, all European net TV advertising markets in RTL Group’s territories were up year-on-year
Reported Group Q1 revenue was stable at €1.313 billion (Q1/2013: €1.317 billion). Lower revenues at UFA Sports and negative exchange rate effects were offset by higher revenues from RTL Nederland and FremantleMedia
Reported EBITA was €194 million compared to €207 million in Q1/2013. With the exceptions of Groupe M6 and RTL Radio in France, all broadcasting operations reported stable or higher profit contributions. The lower Group EBITA is also due to the Easter effect compared to 2013, when the first quarter completely included the build-up campaigns for Easter
Despite the Easter effect drawing advertising revenue from March to April 2014, Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland’s EBITA remained stable at the record level of €134 million reached in Q1/2013
At Groupe M6, EBITA was down to €43 million (Q1/2013: €60 million) due to lower TV advertising revenue and higher programme investments year-on-year
FremantleMedia’s EBITA reached €9 million (Q1/2013: €10 million)
RTL Nederland’s EBITA was up to €6 million from €4 million in Q1/2013, driven by higher TV advertising revenue
Anke Schäferkordt and Guillaume de Posch, Co-Chief Executive Officers of RTL Group, said in a joint statement “Overall, we had a good start into the year and generated one of our best first-quarter results. While Groupe M6 and RTL Radio operated in a continuously very challenging economic environment in France, all our other broadcasters reported higher or stable profit contributions year-on-year, benefiting from the recovery of most of our European TV advertising markets.”
“We confirm our outlook for the full year 2014 and expect our total revenue, at constant scope and exchange rates, to be broadly stable. Additionally, our EBITA for 2014 is also expected to be broadly stable.”