A resurgent television advertising market and a booming streaming and production business, along with some major consolidation and asset sales, helped lift full-year results at European television giant RTL Group, which on Thursday reported a record profit of 1.5 billion euro ($1.6 billion) for 2021.
The result was more than double the 625 million euro profit from a year earlier and points to a healthy bounce-back for the group, which is investing heavily in its regional operations to compete with fast-expanding global streaming companies.
Full-year group revenue jumped 10.3 percent to 6.6 billion euro ($7.3 billion). RTL’s streaming business saw strong growth, with German and Dutch platforms RTL+ and Videoland hitting a total of 3.8 million paying subscribers, the company said. Streaming revenue soared 31.2 percent, but streaming startup losses increased from 55 million euro in 2020 to 166 million euro ($184 million) in the latest year.
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RTL Group said it plans to triple its annual investment in original content, compared to 2021, to around 600 million euro ($660 million) by 2026, primarily to feed its new online services, with the target of 10 million paying subscribers by the end of 2026, at which point RTL is forecasting streaming revenue will have hit 1 billion euro ($1.1 billion), and the division will be in the black.
Later this year, RTL+ will expand its video streaming platform to become a cross-media entertainment service, combining video, music, podcasts, audiobooks and e-magazines.
On the production side — RTL owns production giant Fremantle — the company has set an ambitious revenue target of 3 billion euro ($3.3 billion) by 2025, a goal it says it will hit with a combination of organic growth and targeted acquisitions.
RTL Group CEO Thomas Rabe called 2021 “a strong year in terms of operating performance and strategic progress…driven by the recovery of the advertising markets, our strong market positions and active portfolio management.” He noted that RTL has “made significant progress in executing our strategy to establish national cross-media champions” with major consolidation in it core markets of Germany, France and Benelux.
Last May, RTL and its French network M6 entered into exclusive negotiations with France’s TF1 and Groupe Bouygues for a $4 billion merger of their activities and create a single French media group. RTL and the Talpa Network in the Netherlands have agreed to merge their Dutch broadcasting and other media businesses. And RTL has signed a deal to sell its Belgian operation RTL Belgium, to DPG Media and Groupe Rossel for 250 million euro ($275 million). All three deals are still awaiting regulatory approval.
