German advertising market and digital boosts ProSiebenSat.1

Thomas Ebeling

The strong performance of the German advertising market, digital activities and production all contributed to a solid start to the year for German broadcast group ProSiebenSat.1, which has posted quarterly revenues of €654.6 million, up 12.7%, and recurring EBITDA of €152.7 million, up 9%.

German area broadcasting revenue rose by 4.8% to €470.8 million, and EBITDA grew by 5% despite additional investment costs. ProSiebenSat.1 distribution revenues from its HD channels also grew positively, with the number of HD customers growing 21% to 5.6 million, with an expectation that this will rise to nine million by 2018.

Digital and adjacent revenue s grew by 30.4% to €138.2 million, with recurring EBITDA growing by 12.5% to €26.8 million despite additional costs associated with the expansion of VoD portal Maxdome. Online video views increased to 1.3 billion, up from 769 million, which the group attributed to the strong growth of Studio71 users, ProSiebenSat.1 Group’s multi-channel network.

Content production and sales revenues grew by 75.6% to €45.6 million, with recurring EBITDA up to €0.7 million compared with a loss of €2.5 million for the prior year. Red Arrow Entertainment in the US made the biggest contribution to revenue thanks in part to the success of Bosch, with the consolidation of Half Yard Productions also making a positive contribution.

“We have had a good start to the new financial year. All three segments have developed positively. The digital business is growing dynamically, and also our production pillar has seen significant increase. In the TV business, we are using the favourable economic environment to further augment our TV advertising revenues. We are also making very good progress towards our mid-term targets. By 2018, we want to increase our revenues by EUR 1 billion compared to 2012. We have already achieved 59 %, and thus are a reliable partner for the capital market,” said CEO Thomas Ebeling.