RTL : Strong digital growth and German TV business drive RTL Group half-year results

• Revenue, EBITA and net profit up
• Strong revenue growth in digital: up 94 per cent to €219 million
• Full-year outlook raised
• RTL Group will pay out an extraordinary interim dividend of €1.00 per share

H1/2015: RTL Group net profit up 73.8 per cent

• Reported Group revenue was up 3.8 per cent to €2,788 million (H1/2014: €2,687 million) thanks to strongly increasing revenue at Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, growing digital revenue and favourable exchange rate effects
• Reported EBITA was up 3.3 per cent to €534 million compared to €517 million in H1/2014, mainly driven by Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, resulting in a stable EBITA margin at 19.2 per cent
• RTL Group's digital revenue4continued to show very dynamic growth, up 94 per cent to €219 million (H1/2014: €113 million), benefitting from organic growth and new acquisitions
• Net profit attributable to RTL Group shareholders was up 73.8 per cent to €351 million (H1/2014: €202 million)
• Net cash from operating activities amounted to €295 million, resulting in an operating cash conversion of 74 per cent; RTL Group had net financial debt of €1,003 million as of 30 June 2015
• On 26 August 2015, RTL Group's Board of Directors authorised the distribution of an extraordinary interim dividend of €1.00 per share, to be paid in September 2015. This reflects the Group's cash flows and its target net debt to full-year EBITDA ratio of 0.5 to 1.0 times

Q2/2015: Dynamic growth of revenue, EBITA and net profit

• In the second quarter of 2015, RTL Group's revenue was up 7.7 per cent to €1,480 million (Q2/2014: €1,374 million), driven by higher revenue from Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, digital assets and FremantleMedia
• EBITA was up 4.3 per cent to €340 million (Q2/2014: €326 million)
• Net profit attributable to RTL Group shareholders more than doubled in the second quarter to €245 million (Q2/2014: €111 million)

Segments: Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland continues outstanding financial perfomance

• During the first half of 2015, advertising market conditions showed a mixed picture: looking across the Group's markets, RTL Group estimates that the net TV advertising markets in Germany, France and Spain were up, while the market developments in the Netherlands, Belgium and Hungary remained challenging. Nonetheless, all of RTL Group's families of channels - with the exception of Groupe M6 - were outperforming their respective markets

• Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland's EBITA reached a new record high for a first half at €343 million, up 9.6 per cent from €313 million in H1/2014, driven by significantly higher TV advertising and also higher diversification revenue

• At Groupe M6, EBITA decreased to €105 million (H1/2014: €111 million), mainly reflecting lower EBITA contributions from the company's diversification businesses

• FremantleMedia's EBITA was broadly stable at €28 million (H1/2014: €29 million)

• RTL Nederland's EBITA was down to €27 million (H1/2014: €44 million), mainly due to challenging advertising market conditions

• RTL Hungary's EBITA was up to €16 million (H1/2014: €5 million), driven by one-off effects such as the partial reversal of a stock valuation allowance and the re-claim of the advertising tax paid in 2014

"Transforming RTL Group into a global force in video production, aggregation and monetisation"

Joint statement from Anke Schäferkordt and Guillaume de Posch, Co-Chief Executive Officers of RTL Group:

"In the first half of 2015, RTL Group significantly increased revenue, EBITA and net profit, mainly driven by another strong performance from Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland and our rapidly growing digital video businesses.

Looking at our recent digital investments, BroadbandTV, StyleHaul and SpotXchange, which are now grouped together in the RTL Digital Hub, revenues have been increasing by high double digit growth rates - and we expect them to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. In terms of RTL Group's aggregated online video views, we expect our full-year figure to reach more than 80 billion this year.

In the digital age of total choice, the fundamentals of our business have never been more promising: Linear TV dominates the video market and is the only medium consistently reaching mass audiences day by day. In total, people watch more video content than ever before - long-form and short-form, linear and non-linear, on the TV screen and on multiple devices. The demand for high-quality video content is growing rapidly, as does online video advertising.

RTL Group has leading market positions across the whole value chain of this rapidly evolving total video market. With our financial strength, it is our ambition to significantly grow RTL Group over the next years - to transform the leading European entertainment network into a global force in video production, aggregation and monetisation.

Assuming there will not be major changes in the economic climate across our markets, we raise our outlook for the full year 2015. We now expect our total revenue to be slightly up compared to the full year 2014. We expect full-year reported EBITA to be in line with last year despite lower contributions from one-off gains in 2015."

Impressive growth in digital

• In June 2015, RTL Group formed the RTL Digital Hub to drive leadership and growth in the digital video market. The RTL Digital Hub team manages RTL Group's portfolio of digital acquisitions; provides support for their further international expansion; and scans the market for further investments in the online video space

• The companies of the RTL Digital Hub - RTL Group's recently acquired digital businesses BroadbandTV, StyleHaul and SpotXchange - continued to show strong revenue growth, comparing H1/2015 with H1/2014: BroadbandTV was up 84 per cent, StyleHaul was up 112 per cent5, SpotXchange was up 90 per cent5

• In the first half of 2015:

• RTL Group's catch-up TV services, websites and multi-channel networks (MCNs) attracted a total 42.5 billion online video views, up 171 per cent year-on-year6 (H1/2014: 15.7 billion)
• FremantleMedia's more than 210 YouTube channels attracted 6.1 billion views, up 35 per cent year-on-year

• RTL Group currently generates more than 8 billion online video views per month7 - up 50 per cent compared to the monthly average in Q4/2014

• In April, RTL Group led the most recent financing round for Clypd, a US-based platform for programmatic advertising sales on linear TV, and now holds a 17.4 per cent minority stake in the company (on a fully diluted basis)

• In April, BroadbandTV announced the acquisition of the leading kids content producer and publisher on YouTube, YoBoHo

• At the Newfronts in May 2015, StyleHaul announced a new agreement with Amazon which will see StyleHaul produce short-form videos featuring its digital talent

• In June, BroadbandTV announced an agreement with the Huffington Post to form Outspeak, the first next-generation online video journalism network

The full report for the half-year results 2015 will be available to download at: www.RTLGroup.com/results-H1-2015

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