ProSiebenSat.1 FY revenue up 11%
March 3, 2022
ProSiebenSat.1, the German broadcasting Group has reproted that it grew “dynamically” in 2021.
Group revenues increased by 11 per cent year-on-year to €4.49 billion (previous year: €4.04 billion); organically, Group revenues also grew with a clear plus of 10 per cent. The biggest growth driver was the Entertainment segment, with significantly higher advertising revenues than expected at the beginning of the financial year. At the same time, the broad set-up and cross-divisional cooperation within the Group, which ProSiebenSat.1 is driving forward in all segments, paid off. Part of this strategy was also the acquisition of the US online dating provider The Meet Group in September 2020, which has since strengthened the Dating & Video segment and had a very positive impact on Group revenues.
Rainer Beaujean, Group CEO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE: “Despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, 2021 was a record year for ProSiebenSat.1. We again demonstrated the success and resilience of our business model, raising our outlook three times during the year and finally achieving all financial targets in full. The main driver was our advertising business, which grew faster and more significantly than initially expected – thus enabling us to clearly strengthen our market leadership. At the same time, our robust positioning in three strong segments paid off again. We therefore not only grew profitably but can also propose to our shareholders a 63 per cent higher dividend than in the previous year.”
Operating performance
The Entertainment segment’s external revenues increased by 12 per cent to €3,098 million in the financial year 2021 (previous year: €2,768 million). The organic growth of the segment’s revenues was 13 per cent. This increase reflects the momentum of the advertising business, which has recovered significantly – and better than expected at the beginning of the year – from the impact of the pandemic. In the full-year, the segment’s advertising revenues grew 11 per cent, thus 2 per cent above the pre-pandemic level of 2019. In this context, ProSiebenSat.1 remained the number one in the German TV market in the full-year. The Group leads the German TV advertising market with a share of 37.6 per cent; in the TV audience market (14- to 49-year-olds), ProSiebenSat.1 is also market leader with a share of 25.6 per cent. At the same time, revenues from programme production and sales performed strongly in 2021, growing 25 per cent year-on-year. In addition, distribution revenues grew by 6 per cent.
In the Dating & Video segment, external revenues amounted to €542 million for the full-year, up 63 per cent on the previous year’s figure (previous year: €333 million). This significant increase was driven by the acquisition of The Meet Group in September 2020. The Dating business contributed 51 per cent to the segment’s external revenues, with the US matchmaking service eharmony generating strong organic growth. In the Video business, government stimulus programmes in the US fueled private consumption in 2021 and had a positive impact on the revenues of this business. Organic revenues in the Dating & Video segment were about at the level of the previous year. The high previous-year figure had an impact here: In 2020, ParshipMeet Group had strongly benefited from the restrictions on public life resulting from the pandemic and increased its revenues dynamically accordingly. Adjusted for currency effects and on a pro forma basis, i.e. taking into account The Meet Group’s revenues for the full-year 2020, the segment recorded a revenue increase of around 7 per cent in 2021.
External revenues in the Commerce & Ventures segment amounted to €854 million in 2021 (previous year: €945 million) and thus 10 per cent below the previous year’s figure, particularly due to deconsolidation. This development mainly reflects the disposal of the OTC provider WindStar Medical in December 2020.
ProSiebenSat.1 Group’s adjusted EBITDA increased significantly by 19 per cent to €840 million in the full-year (previous year: €706 million), reflecting the strong growth in revenues and particularly the recovery of the advertising market. As already announced at the beginning of the year, the Group is taking advantage of the positive advertising market environment to strengthen the reach and market share of its entertainment offerings in the medium- and long-term by focusing on local and live content. Adjusted net income grew by 64 per cent to €362 million (previous year: €221 million) due to the significant improvement of operating profitability. This development forms the basis for the Company’s dividend proposal.
Beaujean continued: “We want to continue this success story in 2022: We are fully focused on creating even more value via cooperation between our business areas. Our reach is the strong foundation for this. We are producing local, relevant content – increasingly in-house – and broadcasting it live and on-demand across all platforms. The streaming platform Joyn is the key element of our digital offering. With this digital focus, we are strengthening our total reach and our opportunities to market this profitably and with innovative advertising technologies. Our goal is to be one of the leading digital first infotainment and entertainment providers in the German-speaking region and to use our reach to establish and expand global, synergistic digital consumer platforms. These could even become an own growth pillar for the Group, such as most recently ParshipMeet Group. On the basis of this strategy, we have set ourselves the ambition to generate profitable, organic revenue growth averaging 4 per cent to 5 per cent per year in the medium- to long-term.”
Ralf Peter Gierig, Group CFO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, added: “We have consistently aligned the management of our Company towards organic revenue growth and a clear focus on cash flow. In this way, we already significantly increased our key performance indicator P7S1 ROCE from 10 per cent to over 14 per cent in 2021. In the medium-term, we aim to improve our P7S1 ROCE to over 15 per cent and thus create even more value for our shareholders. The fact that we are succeeding in this is already reflected in the increase of our dividend from €0.49 to €0.80 per share, that we as the Executive Board together with the Supervisory Board will propose to the Annual General Meeting for the financial year 2021.”