Fremantle Owner RTL Group Grows Quarterly Revenues to $1.6 Billion, Projects Annual Revenue of $7.7 billion

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran Bertelsmann’s Luxembourg-based media giant RTL Group, which owns Fremantle, has declared revenues of €1.56 billion ($1.64 billion) for the first quarter of 2022, a growth of 11.3%.The RTL Group has interests in 67 television channels, 10 streaming platforms and 38 radio stations.

The group’s content business, Fremantle, is one of the world’s largest creators, producers and distributors of scripted and unscripted content, including “American Idol,” “Britain’s Got Talent” and “The X Factor.”Fremantle revenues are up 6.5% to €461 million (Q1/2021: €433 million) with the stated target of full-year revenue of €3 billion by 2025 on track.

In March, Fremantle struck a wide-ranging deal with Angelina Jolie. The group’s TV advertising revenue are up 11.2% to €829 million (Q1/2021: €745 million), of which €653 million represented TV advertising revenue (Q1/2021: €587 million), €83 million digital advertising revenue (Q1/2021: €78 million) and €46 million radio advertising revenue (Q1/2021: €48 million).Paying subscribers for the group’s streaming services RTL+ and Videoland are up 58.2% to 4.3 million and revenues by 23.1% to €64 million (Q1/2021: €52 million)The full-year outlook for 2022 has been confirmed with group revenue of approximately €7.4 billion and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and amortization of approximately €1.15 billion.Thomas Rabe, CEO of RTL Group, said: “RTL Group started dynamically into the new year despite the uncertainties resulting from the war in Ukraine.