By Stuart Thomson
RTL’s streaming partnership with Deutsche Telekom has continued to fuel spectacular growth for its RTL+ offering, which grew its base by 84.6 per cent in the year to March to reach 3.172 million subscribers.
Taken together with Dutch streaming offering Videoland, which grew its base by 12.9 per cent to reach 1.136 million subs, the RTL+ numbers mean that the group now has 4.31 million paying streaming customers, up 58.2 per cent year-on-year.
RTL said that its strategic partnership with Deutsche Telekom to bundle RTL+ Premium into the latter’s Magenta TV offering contributed significantly to the service’s growth.
Streaming revenue was up a somewhat more modest 23.1 per cent to €64 million(US$67.5million). RTL believes it is on target to win 10 million streaming subscribers with annual revenues of over €1 billion by 2026.
Overall, RTL saw its first quarter revenues jump by 11.3 per cent year-on-year to €1.404 billion, thanks to its acquisition of Grüner + Jahr and Super RTL in Germany, and a bump in deliveries from production outfit Fremantle.
Advertising revenues grew for the quarter to March grew from €745 million to €829 million, with the bulk still accounted for by TV advertising. Net TV advertising growth of 24.3 per cent in the Netherland sand 7-8 per cent in France contributed to the top line. Growth in German was a more modest 3.5-4.5 per cent.
“RTL Group continues to deliver on its targets for its growth businesses of streaming, content and addressable TV advertising – and we have the resources and capabilities to further boost these businesses to create value for our viewers, clients and shareholders.,” said CEO Tomas Rabe.
