RTL Group reports strong digital growth and a record fourth quarter EBITA in 2014
Reported Group revenue was stable at €5,808 million (2013: €5,824 million). Higher revenue from Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland and from acquisitions (consolidation of BroadbandTV, SpotXchange and 495 Productions) was offset by lower advertising sales in France, the effect of the disposal of the French e-commerce service Mistergooddeal along with lower revenue from FremantleMedia and UFA Sports.
EBITA stable at €1,145 million (2013: €1,148 million), primarily driven by a significantly higher profit contribution from Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland.
Reported EBITA margin stable at 19.7 per cent.
EBITDA slightly up by 1.5 per cent to €1,348 million (2013: €1,328 million).
Net profit attributable to RTL Group shareholders decreased to €653 million (2013: €870 million). This was principally due to movements in impairment charges announced at the interim results. In 2014, RTL Group recorded a goodwill impairment on RTL Hungary amounting to €77 million. Conversely, the net profit for 2013 included a significant positive one-off effect of €72 million, resulting from the reversal of an impairment on RTL Group’s holding in the Spanish broadcasting company Atresmedia.
In the fourth quarter of 2014, reported Group revenue was up 2.8 per cent at €1,862 million (Q4/2013: €1,812 million), while reported EBITA was up significantly by 7.1 per cent to €466 million (Q4/2013: €435 million).
Major progress in implementing RTL Group’s digital growth strategy
• RTL Group’s digital revenue continued to show very dynamic growth, up 26.6 per cent to €295 million (2013: €233 million) benefitting from organic growth and new acquisitions
• RTL Group’s platform revenue grew by 18.9 per cent to €220 million (2013: €185 million)
• RTL Group has developed massive scale in online video. In 2014:
• RTL Group’s catch-up TV services, websites and MCNs attracted a total 36.4 billion online video views, up 117 per cent year-on-year
• thereof: FremantleMedia’s 216 Youtube channels attracted 9.0 billion views, up 35 per cent year-on-year
Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland with another record EBITA; Groupe M6 with slightly higher EBITA contribution
• Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland achieved its best financial result ever: EBITA increased by 5.0 per cent to €650 million (2013: €619 million). This improvement was mainly driven by significantly higher TV advertising revenue in the second half of the year and a growing digital distribution business
• The French net TV advertising market was estimated to be stable in 2014. The EBITA of Groupe M6 was slightly up to €209 million (2013: €207 million), driven by higher profit contributions from the company’s diversification activities
• RTL Nederland’s EBITA stable at €103 million mainly driven by higher platform revenue and diversification activities
• EBITA of RTL Belgium stable at €46 million; RTL Hungary reports an EBITA loss of €1 million (2013: profit of €15 million), mainly due to impairments resulting from the punitive advertising tax which came into effect in August 2014
• FremantleMedia’s EBITA decreased to €113 million (2013: €136 million). As explained at the Q3 results, this was due to the cancellation of X Factor US, lower revenue from American Idol and increased investments in digital businesses and the content pipeline
“Strong results and enhanced digital presence”
Joint statement from Anke Schäferkordt and Guillaume de Posch, Co-Chief Executive Officers of RTL Group:
“Despite challenging environments in France and Hungary, RTL Group once again delivered a very strong set of financial results. Our EBITA remained at the previous year’s record level and the EBITA margin was again close to 20 per cent.
We made significant progress in implementing our strategy across broadcast, content and digital. We successfully launched three new TV channels and further established a second revenue stream from platform operators which delivers high growth rates and profit margins. We invested more than €240 million in rapidly growing digital businesses. This is the highest investment level for acquisitions since 2005.
Over the past two years, our total online video views soared from 7 billion to over 36 billion. RTL Group now owns majority stakes in the number 3 global multi-channel network, BroadbandTV; the number 1 network for fashion, beauty and lifestyle, StyleHaul; the number 1 European MCN, Divimove; and one of the top 5 global platforms for programmatic video advertising, SpotXchange. We are confident that these businesses, with additional investments, will reach such scale over the next 24 months that they become one of the growth drivers of RTL Group’s total revenue.”
The document with the more detailed full-year results 2014 and slides from the presentation will be available to download at www.rtlgroup.com/results_fy2014.
