ProSiebenSat.1 Q1: “Satisfying start to the year”
May 12, 2021
Despite the continuing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, ProSiebenSat.1 Group has reported a strong start in its 2021 financial year.
In the first quarter of 2021, the Group generated revenues of €938 million – a slight increase of 1 per cent compared to the previous year. In the first three months of the year, the ongoing diversification of the Group more than compensated for the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Group’s revenues after the previous-year quarter was not impacted by initial Covid-19 effects until mid-March 2020. Whereas in the first quarter of 2021 advertising revenues were down year-on-year as expected due to the pandemic, growth was generated amongst others by programme production and sales as well as the distribution business in the Entertainment segment and by companies in the Commerce & Ventures segment such as the online beauty provider Flaconi, which particularly benefited from the advertising reach of the entertainment business. In addition, the Dating segment played a key role here with the integration of the US online dating company, The Meet Group, which is also recording strong organic growth.
Rainer Beaujean, Chairman of the Executive Board of ProSiebenSat.1 Media, commented: “We are very satisfied with our start into the year 2021. Despite the continuing Covid-19 lockdown, we have achieved revenue growth in the first quarter and limited the impact on adjusted EBITDA – even though the previous-year figures were mostly not yet affected by the pandemic until mid-March 2020. This is clearly due to our increasing diversification: Particularly with our good results in the Dating and Commerce & Ventures segments, we largely compensated for the pandemic-driven declines in the advertising business.”
Beaujean added: “We are on a very good path to set up ProSiebenSat.1 in an increasingly diversified and profitable manner. Over the coming months we will make further progress in this area with a sharper focus on synergies and our local markets. We expect the advertising business to improve considerably in the second quarter. Already in April, we increased our advertising revenues by around 40 per cent and we are clearly more optimistic for May. At the same time, we see even stronger-than-expected growth in the Entertainment segment outside the advertising business as well as in the Dating and Commerce & Ventures segments. Overall, this means that we are able to increase our previous full-year outlook for revenues and adjusted EBITDA, showing again how well our strategy is taking effect.”