RTL: Revenue from streaming increases by 41 percent in one year

RTL Group sees its streaming strategy clearly confirmed: According to the figures just published for the first quarter of 2024, the Group's streaming services - RTL+ in Germany and Hungary and 6play10 in France - had a total of 6 million paying subscribers at the end of March. This corresponds to an increase of 24.2 percent compared to the previous year (end of March 2023: 4.8 million). RTL+ has by far the most subscribers in Germany, with 5.3 million paying customers at the end of March - an increase of 6 percent compared to the previous year (with 4.4 million subscribers). According to RTL, the partnership with Deutsche Telekom to bundle RTL+ Premium in Magenta TV made a significant contribution to growth.

Above all, however, the Group was able to report a huge 41% jump in streaming revenues compared to the same quarter of the previous year - from 61 to 86 million euros. According to RTL Group, this was triggered by "a significantly higher number of paying subscribers and higher subscription prices in Germany". At the same time, however, the company also emphasizes that the service is being used more and more. For example, the use of RTL+ increased by 45.1 percent to an average of 47.8 million hours per month in the period mentioned. In this context, it is also important to note that RTL+ is not limited to video offerings, but also includes podcasts and music offerings, depending on the tariff. According to the company, the average monthly podcast views on RTL+ increased by 32.4 percent compared to Q1/2023.

TV revenues on the rise again

When announcing previous quarterly figures, RTL had repeatedly had to report that TV advertising revenues were increasingly collapsing. Here too, however, the Group can report growth for the past quarter. Advertising income from TV amounted to 528 million euros in the first quarter of 2024, compared to just 480 million euros in the first quarter. In addition, digital advertising revenues amounted to EUR 80 million (Q1/2023: EUR 70 million) and radio, print and other advertising revenues to EUR 77 million (Q1/2023: EUR 72 million), meaning that RTL Group's total advertising revenues increased by 10.1 percent to EUR 686 million (Q1/2023: EUR 623 million).

Against this backdrop, the Group expects revenues to increase to around EUR 6.6 billion for the full year 2024, driven by higher revenues at RTL Germany (mainly due to strong growth in streaming revenues) and Fremantle (mainly due to a recovery in the US market and acquisitions). For 2024, the Group expects adjusted EBITA of around EUR 750 million, with a variance of approximately EUR 50 million depending on the development of the German and French TV advertising markets in 2024. This outlook for adjusted EBITA already includes higher content costs, mainly for the broadcast of the 2024 European Championship matches in France and Germany, as well as higher streaming start-up losses (2023: EUR 176 million), mainly due to investments in M6+ in France. (nij)