RTL Group Accelerates Transformation

RTL Group today presented its financials for the 2025 financial year. The Group reports streaming revenue growth of 26 per cent and a significant reduction of streaming start-up losses. RTL Group's total revenue in 2025 was €6.0 billion, with adjusted EBITA at €661 million.

The RTL Group financials 2025 at a glance

• Group revenue at €6.0 billion
• Adjusted EBITA of €661 million, in line with the last guidance; Adjusted EBITA margin of 11.0 per cent
• Total Group profit of €1,028 million, driven by the sale of RTL Nederland
• TV advertising market share gains across Germany, France and Hungary
• Paying streaming subscribers up 19 per cent to 8.1 million; streaming revenue up 26 per cent to €509 million
• Streaming start-up losses reduced by €90 million to €47 million; near break-even in Q4/2025
• Announced acquisition of Sky Deutschland (DACH) to boost RTL Group’s streaming business; approval and closing expected in H1/2026
• Partnerships with Deutsche Telekom, Amazon, HBO Max/Warner Bros Discovery
• Attractive shareholder remuneration: proposed dividend of €5.50 per share; dividend yield of 16.5 per cent
• Share buyback to be continued after dividend payout up to an additional volume of 0.5 million shares, through open market transactions
• Full-year 2026 Adjusted EBITA expected to increase to around €725 million, medium-term Adjusted EBITA target of €1 billion confirmed

Continued dynamic streaming and digital advertising growth

• Group revenue was down 3.8 per cent to €6,018 million (2024: €6,254 million), mainly due to lower TV advertising revenue and lower content revenue from Fremantle. Group revenue was down 4.3 per cent organically compared to 2024.
• RTL Group’s digital advertising revenue was up 27.7 per cent to €517 million (2024: €405 million) compensating 68 per cent of the decrease in TV advertising revenue.
• Revenue at RTL Group’s content business, Fremantle, was down 9.4 per cent to €2,043 million (2024: €2,254 million). This was mainly due to lower revenue from the entertainment business, especially in the US and the UK. Fremantle’s revenue decreased 9.1 per cent organically.
• Streaming revenue was up 26.3 per cent to €509 million (2024: €403 million), driven by a significantly higher number of paying subscribers, increased subscription prices in Germany and rapidly growing advertising revenue on RTL+ in Germany and M6+ in France.
• Distribution revenue was up 1.1 per cent to €358 million (2024: €354 million).
• Adjusted EBITA decreased to €661 million (2024: €721 million), mainly due to lower profit contributions from the Group’s broadcasting businesses, partly offset by significantly lower streaming start-up losses. The Adjusted EBITA includes streaming start-up losses of €47 million (2024: €137 million). The Adjusted EBITA margin was 11.0 per cent (2024: 11.5 per cent).
• Adjusted EBITDA decreased to €910 million (2024: €992 million). The Adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.1 per cent (2024: 15.9 per cent).
• Total Group profit was €1,028 million (2024: €555 million), mainly driven by the sale of RTL Nederland. Total Group profit was impacted by significant negative special items of €-371 million, mainly relating to RTL Deutschland (€-201 million) and Fremantle (€-125 million).
• RTL Group had net cash of €126 million at the end of 2025 (end of 2024: net debt of €-492 million).
• For RTL Group’s Annual General Meeting on 29 April 2026, RTL Group’s Board of Directors proposes a dividend of €5.50 per share for 2025 (2024: €2.50 per share). The ex-dividend date of the dividend payment would be 30 April 2026 and the payment date 5 May 2026.
• Based on the average share price in 2025 (€33.419), the proposed dividend of €5.50 per share represents a dividend yield of 16.5 per cent (2024: 8.3 per cent).

“We are accelerating our transformation and positioning RTL Group for sustainable profit growth.”

Thomas Rabe, Chief Executive Officer of RTL Group, says: “The market environment in 2025 remained challenging, with a significant decline of TV advertising and an even faster shift from linear TV to streaming. Against this backdrop, RTL Group further accelerated its transformation by reallocating resources to streaming, combined with comprehensive cost reductions across our main businesses.

Our streaming services continued to grow strongly, making RTL Group one of the leading European media companies in streaming. We exceeded 8 million paying subscribers at the end of 2025. Streaming revenue and viewing time continued to grow dynamically, while streaming start-up losses came down significantly and the business was near break-even in the fourth quarter. Our streaming business will be profitable in 2026 – and will become the key driver for sustainable profit growth in the coming years.

For 2026, we expect Adjusted EBITA to increase by 10 per cent to around €725 million, depending on the performance of the advertising markets. Beyond 2026, we confirm our medium-term Adjusted EBITA ambition of €1 billion, driven by continuously increasing streaming profits, synergies from the planned acquisition of Sky Deutschland, higher Fremantle profits, AI benefits and continued cost discipline.

With the sale of RTL Nederland, we once again secured high cash returns for our shareholders, reflected in the proposed dividend of €5.50 per share.”

Strengthening RTL Group’s core

In 2025, RTL Deutschland’s combined audience share in the main commercial target group of viewers aged 14 to 59 decreased to 25.8 per cent (2024: 26.3 per cent). In prime time (between 20:15 and 23:15), the average audience share in the commercial target group remained stable at 24.8 per cent. The lead over the channel’s main commercial competitor ProSiebenSat1 was 5.1 percentage points (2024: 6.3 percentage points).

In June 2025, RTL Group announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Sky Deutschland (DACH). The transaction brings together two of the most recognisable media brands in the DACH region with around 12 million paying subscribers, becoming the clear number three in the German streaming market. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals. In September 2025, Germany’s Commission on Concentration in the Media (KEK) approved RTL Deutschland’s planned acquisition of Sky Deutschland, noting no concerns for media plurality. RTL Group expects to obtain regulatory approval from the European Commission and to close the transaction in the first half of 2026.

The combined audience share of Groupe M6’s free-to-air channels in the commercial target group of viewers aged 25 to 49 was 21.0 per cent (2024: 19.6 per cent), mainly driven by the channels W9, 6ter and M6, making it the second-most-watched commercial family of TV channels in France.

French entertainer Cyril Hanouna joined Groupe M6 in September 2025, launching a new entertainment format, Tout beau, tout n9uf, on W9. The show, airing every weekday, achieved an average audience share of 10.2 per cent in the commercial target group in 2025 since its launch in September.

Boosting growth businesses: streaming

• By the end of 2025, RTL Group had registered 8.060 million paying subscribers for ist streaming services RTL+ in Germany and Hungary and M6+ in France, up 19.2 per cent year on year (31 December 2024: 6.764 million).
• The number of paying subscribers for the German streaming service RTL+ increased by 15.6 per cent to 7.006 million (6.061 million at the end of December 2024). The partnership with Deutsche Telekom to bundle RTL+ Premium in Magenta TV and exclusive content contributed significantly to the growth.
• Viewing hours for RTL+ in Germany increased by 8.7 per cent to 705 million hours in 2025, making RTL+ the leading German entertainment offering in the streaming market (2024: 649 million hours).
• In January 2025, Deutsche Telekom and RTL Deutschland announced the renewal of their streaming partnership – which started at the end of 2020 – until 2030. Under the terms of the agreement, RTL+ Premium is included in most price plans of Deutsche Telekom’s TV offer, Magenta TV, without additional fees for Magenta TV customers.
• In October 2025, RTL Deutschland and Amazon expanded their partnership by launching RTL+ as a dedicated add-on channel on Prime Video in Germany and Austria. Amazon customers can now easily access the full streaming portfolio of RTL+ directly via Prime Video for €12.99 per month, without advertising or app switching.
• In January 2026, RTL Deutschland launched a streaming partnership with Warner Bros Discovery for a bundled subscription of RTL+ and HBO Max in Germany, coinciding with the German market entry of HBO Max. The offer brings together RTL+’s strong local content portfolio with HBO Max’s internationally renowned series and films at a discounted price compared to standalone subscriptions.
• The streaming service M6+ recorded a very strong year. In 2025, M6+ increased its viewing hours11 by 9.9 per cent to 608 million (2024: 553 million).
• In January 2026, Groupe M6 also entered into a distribution agreement with Amazon Prime Video to make its streaming service M6+ available to all Prime members in France at no additional cost.
• In July 2024, RTL Group announced that RTL+ in Germany plans to migrate to the Bedrock technology platform. The migration is expected to be completed by the end of April 2026, which will generate significant cost savings.

Boosting growth businesses: Fremantle

Fremantle increased its Adjusted EBITA and margin to the highest level since 2013, on track to reach the target margin of 9 per cent in 2026. Fremantle will continue to invest significantly in IP development, small and medium-sized acquisitions of production companies with a strong IP base and in the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) across the company’s value chain.

• Fremantle celebrated major creative successes in 2025 and won 145 awards (2024: 190). The film Bugonia from Fremantle’s Element Pictures was nominated for four Academy Awards (Oscars), three Golden Globes and five BAFTAs. Fremantle demonstrated its creative strength through several high-profile productions for international streaming platforms, including Maxton Hall and Hotel Costiera on Amazon Prime Video and Sullivan’s Crossing, Evil Influencer and The Monster of Florence on Netflix.
• Fremantle announced the launch of Imaginae Studios. The new stand-alone label is dedicated to leveraging AI solutions, technologies and tools for the creative community. In June 2025, Fremantle launched Fremantle Global Originals, the new stand-alone creative hub dedicated to the creation of original unscripted formats.
• In September 2025, Fremantle announced the greenlight of a Baywatch reboot by Fox Television Network. The show will be co-produced by Fremantle North America and Fox Entertainment with a straight-to-series order for 12 episodes in the first season.

Fostering alliances and partnerships

• Following the closing of the sale of RTL Nederland to DPG Media on 1 July 2025, RTL Group and DPG Media entered a partnership, with renewed service agreements spanning from technology (Bedrock, BCE, Smartclip) to international advertising sales (RTL AdAlliance), and first-look rights for all new programmes developed by RTL Nederland.
• In September 2025, RTL AdAlliance – RTL Group’s international advertising sales house – signed an exclusive cooperation agreement with FranceTV Publicité, the sales house of France Télévisions. RTL AdAlliance represents the TV and digital inventory of France Télévisions internationally. In October 2025, RTL AdAlliance launched a strategic advertising sales partnership with ORF-Enterprise, the advertising sales house of Austria’s public broadcaster ORF. RTL AdAlliance represents the TV, radio and digital inventory of ORF internationally.
• In January 2026, RTL Deutschland’s advertising sales house, Ad Alliance, and Warner Bros Discovery launched an advertising sales partnership for the streaming service HBO Max in Germany, enabling advertisers in Germany to book advertising on HBO Max directly via Ad Alliance.

Outlook

The geopolitical and macroeconomic environment remains volatile, and the impact on RTL Group’s businesses continues to be hard to predict. On the basis of the Group’s linear TV advertising revenue decreasing by around 3 per cent (supported by the positive effect of the 2026 Fifa World Cup at Groupe M6 in France), the Group’s streaming revenue growing by around 25 per cent and Fremantle’s revenue growing by around 3 per cent organically:

• RTL Group expects its full-year revenue for 2026 to increase to around €6.1 billion to €6.2 billion.
• RTL Group expects its Adjusted EBITA for 2026 to increase to around €725 million, with a variance of plus/minus 3 per cent, due to the Group‘s streaming services turning profitable.
• RTL Group’s dividend policy remains unchanged: RTL Group plans to pay out at least 80 per cent of its adjusted full-year net result.

Share buybacks

On 27 June 2025, RTL Group announced the acquisition of Sky Deutschland (DACH). The purchase price consists of €150 million in cash and a variable consideration linked to RTL Group’s share price performance. The variable consideration can be triggered by Comcast, Sky’s parent company, at any time within five years after closing, provided that RTL Group’s share price exceeds €41, subject to certain adjustments. The variable consideration is capped at €377 million in total. RTL Group has the right to settle the variable consideration in RTL Group shares or cash or a combination of both.

Share buybacks allow RTL Group to build a portfolio of treasury shares which it can use to fully or partially settle the potential variable consideration for the acquisition of Sky Deutschland, or as compensation for other future acquisitions.

In September 2025, RTL Group acquired 3,166,052 own shares for €37.85 per share as the result of a public share buyback offer.

On 18 November 2025, RTL Group started an additional share buyback programme, for a volume of up to 833,948 RTL Group shares, through open-market transactions. The share buyback programme ended on 11 March 2026. Acquiring an additional volume of 350,768 shares out of the maximum of 833,948 RTL Group shares through open-market transactions, for an amount of €11.8 million (corresponding to an average purchase price of €33.58 per share), brought the total volume of the two share buybacks up to 3,516,820 shares.

After the payout of the dividend for the year 2025, RTL Group will continue its share buyback, up to an additional volume of around 0.5 million shares, through open-market transactions. This would bring the total volume of the share buybacks up to 4 million shares, as initially targeted. RTL Group will communicate more details in a separate announcement, after the dividend payout.