Record First-Half Revenues at RTL Group

Revenues for the first half of the year at RTL Group rose by 8.7 percent to €3.3 billion ($3.4 billion), a new record for the company, but profit dropped to €304 million ($314 million) and the company has revised its 2022 outlook due to the “challenging macroeconomic environment.”

The first-half gains were powered by a strong performance at RTL Nederland, higher streaming revenue, RTL Deutschland’s Gruner + Jahr and Super RTL acquisitions and Fremantle. In the second quarter, meanwhile, revenues rose by 6.5 percent to €1.7 billion ($1.73 billion).

“RTL Group had a solid first half of the year 2022, despite the growing economic uncertainties resulting from the war in Ukraine, increasing inflation and supply chain issues,” said CEO Thomas Rabe. “Thanks to our investments into streaming and content and the strong performance of RTL Nederland, our first-half revenues reached a new record level of €3.3 billion ($3.36 billion). Despite significantly higher streaming startup losses and a slowdown of the TV advertising markets since March, RTL Group generated a higher adjusted EBITA—once again demonstrating our ability to generate strong financial results even in challenging conditions.”

Rabe continued, “Given the challenging macroeconomic environment and its impact on advertising markets in particular, we have decided to revise RTL Group’s outlook for the full year 2022. RTL Group now expects its adjusted EBITA to come in at between €1.05 billion ($1.07 billion) and €1.15 billion ($1.7 billion), including streaming startup losses and €1.3 and €1.4 billion ($1.32 and $1.43 billion) before streaming startup losses.

“RTL Group continues to deliver on its targets for its growth businesses of streaming and content. Our streaming services continued to grow dynamically and passed the 4.5 million paying subscriber mark. In the second half of 2022, we will expand RTL+ to become a cross-media entertainment service. Our content business is also accelerating, with five acquisitions and step-ups in the past six months, major talent deals and 30 planned films for 2022. We have also made significant progress in executing our strategy to establish national cross-media champions. The integration of RTL Deutschland and Gruner + Jahr is progressing according to plan, and we sold RTL Belgium and RTL Croatia. We expect the competition authorities in France and the Netherlands to decide on the proposed combinations of both Groupe TF1 and Groupe M6, and Talpa Network and RTL Nederland in autumn. We remain convinced that market consolidation is necessary to compete with the global tech platforms.”

The first half included streaming revenues of €130 million ($132 million), with paying subscribers at RTL+ and Videoland up 48 percent to more than 4.5 million (3.4 million at RTL+ and 1.08 million at Videoland). Distribution revenues were up 3.3 percent to €220 million ($224 million).