RTL Group 9-month Revenue Drops, Cuts Annual Guidance
RTL Group (AUO.F), a Luxembourgian media conglomerate, on Wednesday posted a decline in revenue for the first nine-month period of 2023. In addition, the Group has revised down its annual guidance.
For the nine-month period to September, the Group recorded a revenue of 4.661 billion euros, lesser than 5.006 billion euros registered for the same period last year. This is mainly due to significantly lower TV advertising revenue from broadcasting businesses and lower Fremantle revenue.
Revenue from Fremantle, the Group’s content business, declined to 1.534 billion euros from last year’s 1.650 billion euros, due to lower buyer activity.
The Group’s total advertising revenue moved down to 2.303 billion euros from 2.517 billion euros a year ago.
However, streaming revenue from RTL+ and Videoland improved to 236 million euros from 195 million euros, driven by a significantly higher number of paying subscribers in Germany and the Netherlands.
The company said its distribution revenue remained stable at 327 million euros, compared with 329 million euros in 2022.
Looking ahead, for the full year, the Group now expects its adjusted EBITA to be around 900 million euros against its previous forecast of around 950 million euros.
The company continues to expect streaming start-up losses of around 200 million euros. Consequently, it projects Adjusted EBITA before streaming start-up losses to be around 1.10 billion euros, lesser than its earlier guidance for around 1.15 billion euros.
RTL Group now expects its TV advertising revenue to decline by a mid-single-digit percentage in the second half against its previous expectation for stable to slightly growing, and Fremantle’s full-year revenue to be lower than expected due to increased muted buyer activity.
Based on these factors, RTL Group now expects its full-year revenue of around 6.9 billion euros, lesser than its earlier outlook of around 7 billion euros.
For full-year 2022, the company had recorded revenue of 7.224 billion euros, with adjusted EBITA of 1.083 billion euros.
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