The company's revenue growth was driven by higher advertising revenues (up 4.2 per cent).

After the first half of 2016 was notable for both the broadcast of Euro 2016 and a positive one-off effect from the gradual phase-out of the M6 Mobile contract, the reported EBITA of Groupe M6 was down by 12.7 per cent to €118.7 million in H1 2017. Adjusted for the positive one-effect, which amounted to €42.6 million in H1 2016, EBITA was up 27.1 per cent year-on-year - underlining the strong performance of the company's free-to-air channels.

Television

Les Reines du Shopping, Top Chef and L'amour est dans le pré © Vincent De paulo/Sylvie Lancrenon/M6

In an politically eventful first quarter, marked by the French presidential and parliamentary elections, which does not favour viewing of its main channel M6, Groupe M6's family of free-to-air channels achieved a stable year-to-year average audience share of 21.8 per cent in the commercial target group (up 0.1 percentage points year-on-year; source: Médiamétrie).

Groupe M6 succeeded in monetising its strong audience figures and saw advertising revenues from its free-to-air channels rise by 3.8 per cent, despite a challenging comparison base, as the company broadcast live matches of the Euro 2016 in the second quarter of the previous year.

The TV division thus contributed €101.4 million to the company's EBITA (H1/2016: €69.6 million).

Scheduling costs for the free-to-air channels was amounted to €221.1 million (down €11.4 million), marked by the reinvestment of some of the broadcasting costs of Euro 2016. Therefore, the company's margin from recurring operations for its core business was high at 22.6 per cent.

Production and audiovisual rights

In the first half of 2017, revenue from production and audiovisual rights operations totalled €52.3 million, down 5.6 per cent year-on-year, due to a less busy cinema release schedule.

Production and audiovisual rights operations generated EBITA of €3.7 million (H1/2016: €5.0 million).

For more information on Groupe M6's financial results for the first half of 2017, click on the PDF document below.

RTL Group SA published this content on 26 July 2017 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
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