Lagardère hit by lower TV production, soft ad market

Lower TV production year-on-year pushed revenues for Lagardère’s media arm down for the first quarter.

Lagardère Active posted revenues of €202 million, down 8.9% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis. Excluding TV production, which Lagardère said had experienced an “extremely strong” quarter last year, the unit posted a 5.6% decline, largely due to a weak advertising market.

TV production dropped by 49.5% compared with the same period last year, which was in turn 82.1% up on the comparable 2012 quarter. The 2013 first quarter saw the delivery of key titles including Clem, Odysseus, Famille d’Accueil, Nos Chers Voisins and Si Près de Chez Vous.

Lagardère Active’s TV channels saw a mild decline of 2.3% in their revenues compared with the previous year, thanks to a soft ad market.

Lagardère said that Active’s digital activities had been hit by Google’s offensive on the market for shopping guides and noted that Google’s activites in the sector were currently subject to an investigation by the European Commission.