RTL Group is making up for the decline in TV advertising revenue primarily with strong growth in streaming. However, the profit goes back.

The European television group RTL has to put up with a drop in profits for 2022 due to the weakening advertising business and higher losses in streaming. However, the streaming business grew strongly. According to the company, the number of subscribers in Germany, the Netherlands and Hungary rose by around 44 percent to 5.5 million. Streaming sales increased by almost a fifth.

In the current year, the Bertelsmann subsidiary expects a stable operating result and higher sales. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITA) fell last year by six percent to 1.08 billion euros and were thus at the lower end of the expectations lowered in August, as the Bertelsmann subsidiary announced. For the current year, the group is targeting a further slight decline to 1.0 to 1.05 billion euros, mainly due to investments in the streaming business.

In terms of sales, there should be an increase to 7.3 to 7.4 billion euros. In the previous year, revenues had risen by 8.8 percent to a record 7.2 billion euros, but more slowly than initially hoped. Organically, i.e. if you factor out the takeover of Gruner + Jahr by RTL Germany, there was an increase of 1.6 percent. TV advertising sales were 4.4 percent below the previous year.

“2022 was a strong year for RTL Group, although we were confronted with an unprecedented number of external challenges,” said RTL boss Thomas Rabe, referring to the Ukraine war. This burdened the economy and thus also the TV advertising market. Rabe announced a dividend of 4 euros per share.