ProSiebenSat.1 ups outlook after advertising bounceback

Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 Group has upped its outlook for the financial year after recording what it described as a very strong recovery in the second quarter compared to the COVID-19 impacted previous-year quarter.

The company’s revenues rose by 47% to around €1.045 billion in the second quarter. Adjusted EBITDA grew more than seven times to around €165 million from €23 million.

The top line was boosted by a stronger than expected recovery in advertising revenues with the ad business in Germany, Austria and Switzerland growing by 56% year on year in the second quarter, following a decline of 15% in the first quarter of 2021 and a decline of 37% in the pandemic-impacted second quarter of 2020.

The group is now targeting revenues of €4.4 billion, up from €4.25 billion as the lower end and revenues of €4.5, up from €4.45 billion as the upper end of the target range, now equating to growth of between 9% and 11%.

The company now assumes growth of 3% to 7% in advertising revenues in the region of Germany, Austria and Switzerland compared to the previous year

Rainer Beaujean, chairman of the executive board of ProSiebenSat.1 Group said: “The significant recovery and clear growth of our advertising revenues in the second quarter show how attractive the medium of TV continues to be. We are optimistic that this trend will continue in the course of the year. We also want to use this positive environment to continously expand reach and market shares of our stations and platforms. At the same time, we continue to work on the increasing diversification of ProSiebenSat.1 in order to secure our profitable growth also in the long term. In this context, our focus is on strengthening our cash flow, further reducing our debt and improving our P7S1 return on capital employed to over 15% in the mid-term. To this end, we are systematically leveraging the synergies between our three strong segments entertainment, dating and commerce and ventures.”