KirchMedia posted increased revenues of DM 4,597, a 7% increase on last year, and EBITDA down only 4% to DM 469 million despite significant losses in the commercial TV division, particularly at TV broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1.
Revenue increases were largely due to successes within the company’s rights division where fiction rights trading showed a significant improvement in margins compared with the fiscal year 2000. Revenue increases were driven by sales of programming content and amounted to DM 1,407.3 million, the EBITDA margin increased from 14.9% in 2000 to 24.1% in 2001.
Sports rights EBITDA was DM 26.3 million. World Cup rights do not have a P&L effect in 2000 or 2001, as all proceeds from the rights sales are booked as prepayments received, license payments to FIFA as prepayments paid until the events take place in 2002 and 2006.
In the Commercial TV division, mainly consisting of ProSiebenSat.1 and sports channel DSF, revenue was DM 3,086.0 million and EBITDA fell to DM 218.2 million. These declines are a direct result of the decline in advertising expenditure in Germany and, additionally, the traditional seasonality of the sector where the third quarter is regularly the weakest in terms of revenues, with costs being more or less evenly split over the year.
ProSiebenSat.1 revenue fell by 4.5% to DM 2,774.7 million in 2001. EBITDA declined by 22.7% to DM 224.4 million (adjusted for a net foreign exchange loss of DM 2.4 million) over the same period).
Dr. Dieter Hahn, chairman of the board designate of KirchMedia and deputy chairman of the executive board of KirchHolding, KirchMedia’s parent group, said: “These results clearly show a robust financial performance and highlight the advantage of a vertically integrated media company such as KirchMedia. The strong results in our Rights Trading business have offset the downturn in the Commercial TV revenues caused by the current weakness of the advertising market. The merger with ProSiebenSat.1 will further enhance this effect and will therefore bring additional benefits to the business going forward.”
