France’s victory in the World Cup is unlikely to result in any longer-term gains in terms of advertising revenues for France’s main commercial broadcaster TF1, says a note from Deutsche Bank.

The bank says that because advertising is always pre-sold into these major events, its channel checks, summarised in this note, pointed to push-back from advertisers around the pricing premium being sought by TF1 in light of accelerating viewing declines.

The bank adds: “The high [World Cup] viewing will ease some of this pressure for TF1 in the short term, ensuring it over-delivers on commercial impacts, but notably in an interview with Journal du Dimanche, CEO Gilles Pelisson refuses to confirm whether the company would cover the €75 million of costs it paid for coverage of the event. He refuses to comment on whether revenues would could reach €60 million. We expect a relatively muted 1.5 per cent advertising growth for TF1 in 2Q (results end July) in a French TV ad market, which we estimate has turned negative in the quarter.”

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