Fremantle revenues dipped almost 10% during Q1 but owner RTL is hoping for a bounceback and has set company growth targets for full-year 2024.RTL put the Poor Things and Got Talent producer’s weak Q1 performance, which saw its revenue tumble by 9.2% year-on-year to €395M ($424m), down to “timing effects in the UK, Italy and Germany” of show launches.An improvement is expected during this quarter, RTL added, pointing to the launch of a second season of BBC drama The Responder and new BBC series Nightsleeper, as well as season 19 of America’s Got Talent for NBC and Race To Survive: New Zealand for the USA Network in the U.S. Fremantle will also start realizing its €200M investment in Death in Paradise content group Asacha and 80% of Singapore’s Beach House Pictures.Fremantle’s full-year 2023 turnover fell by 3.5%, revealed last month, at which point Deadline reported that RTL had delayed the super-indie’s lofty €3B 2025 revenue target by up to a year.RTL, however, saw a healthy overall Q1 turnover boost of 2.6% to €1.3B, which it said was “driven by significantly higher TV advertising and streaming revenue,” factors that were therefore “partly offset by lower content revenue due to timing.”RTL unveiled a full-year 2024 target of €6.6B turnover, which would be an increase of more than 6%. It does, however, expected adjusted EBITA to fall slightly by around €30M to €750m, although has given itself €50m leeway either side.The adjusted EBITA outlook includes higher content costs, primarily for the broadcast of Euro 2024 matches in France and Germany, along with higher streaming start-up losses primarily due to investments in a new streamer, M6+, in France.Further down the line, RTL has another lofty target to nearly triple its streaming revenue to €750M by 2026, at which point it will also be spending nearly double on content, up to €500M, and have almost double the subs for its various streaming services.“RTL Group has started strongly and in line with our expectations into 2024,” said Thomas Rabe, who runs the Bertelsmann-owned outfit. “We have strengthened our leading audience and advertising positions in Germany and continued the dynamic growth of our streaming business. Our first-quarter results confirm our strategy of investing through the cycle.”
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