Television Group RTL Suffers from Decline in Advertising Business
The Corona crisis has caused a decline in advertising business for the RTL television group, and with it a drop in revenues. Total revenues fell by 3.4 percent to 1.46 billion euros in the first quarter within the year, as the group announced on Thursday.
Digital sales, on the other hand, climbed by just under six percent to 233 million euros. Due to the unforeseeable consequences of the virus pandemic, the Group had cancelled the dividend for 2019 at the beginning of April and revised its forecast for the current year. Now it said: "RTL Group is currently not in a position to provide a new outlook for the 2020 financial year."
The first cancellations for advertising bookings and postponements of productions were registered at the beginning of March, said RTL CEO Thomas Rabe. "This trend accelerated in the second half of March with the introduction of far-reaching protection measures across Europe."
RTL Group's TV channels, radio stations, streaming services and websites did record significantly higher reach and usage figures. However, the Group estimates that the net TV advertising market shrank by four to 4.5 percent in Germany alone in the first quarter. (SDA)
