ProSiebenSat.1 Media’s CFO Rainer Beaujean, speaking at investment bank Berenberg’s German Conference on September 21st, told delegates that he was “extremely confident” that the broadcasting group will hit its EBITDA target of +/-€820 million, notwithstanding investment in new programming formats that should pay off in the longer term.

That programming reinvestment is being made possible by a continuation of the strong advertising trends in the DACH (German-speaking markets). In August, advertising in DACH was up by high single digits, and the trend has continued into September.

“Advertising is now running at, or even slightly above, 2019 levels. Management did not comment on October, but noted that it does not expect any weakening of the trend (albeit the comparables are much tougher in Q4, having been in positive territory in 2020). E-commerce continues to use TV advertising to good effect, and the company continues to work on offering advertising solutions across multiple platforms (ie linear, digital) to address all audiences,” said Berenberg.

“Management was relatively dismissive of the consolidation opportunity. In Germany, it believes there are clear anti-trust issues with regard to in-market consolidation, and would not be interested in combining with other forms of traditional media (eg print). Meanwhile, the idea of cross-border consolidation was also described in doubtful terms, even if Mr Beaujean said he would consider any offer. The main strategy, given that consolidation is unlikely, is to broaden the group’s scope of operations towards digital and video. ProSiebenSat.1 wants to be perceived as a digital company, rather than a pure media group,” added Berenberg.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Optimism under threat at SES
2. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
3. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
4. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
5. IRIS2 already in trouble?
6. Intelsat contemplates next steps
7. SpaceX: 2.7m customers and $180bn value
8. Boeing, Virgin Galactic in court battle
9. Jupiter-3 a changemaker

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Tags: berenberg, germany, ProSiebenSat.1