Hello, and welcome to TF1 H1 2024 results. My name is Zach, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note that this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to Rodolphe Belmer, CEO, and Pierre-Alain Gérard, CFO. Please go ahead.
Good evening, and thank you for joining us for H1 2024 results presentation. On today's agenda, I will first give you an update on our H1 activity and business highlights on our two operating segments. Pierre-Alain Gérard, TF1 Group CFO, will present our financial results. After that, I will conclude with an update on our outlook, and we'll then close with a Q&A session. First of all, we are happy to share that LCI, TMC, and TFX have been selected by ARCOM, the French regulator, as part of the tender process for five DTT licenses. This milestone reflects the seriousness of our project and the contribution of these channels to the French media landscape. The key highlights of the first half of 2024. Let's look first at our audience results.
TF1 Group strengthened its audience leadership with increases in both linear and streaming, confirming the success of TF1 Group's editorial line and digital acceleration strategy. In H1 2024, the group's audience shares stood at 34.6% among women under fifty, up 1.0 point, and 31.5% among individuals aged 25 to 49, up 1.3 points. TF1+, that we launched at the beginning of this year, is establishing itself as a leader in terms of reach and set a new record in May with 35.4 million streamers for the month of May. Now, our financial performance. The group's advertising revenue was up by more than 7% year-on-year, driven by strong performance in both linear and digital. TF1+ got off to a very good start.
Its advertising revenue grew by 40% to EUR 65 million in the first half, reflecting the appeal of the platform for both advertisers and streamers. Over the first semester, linear advertising revenue was up 5% year-on-year, demonstrating that the strong development of our streaming does not cannibalize linear. Current operating profit from activities amounted to EUR 129 million, in line with our company-compiled consensus. Current operating margin from activities was at 11.7%, compared to 14.7% in H1 2023, as anticipated at this stage of the year and not representative of the evolution expected for the full year. The group maintains a strong financial position, with a net cash of EUR 446 million at end June 2024, up EUR 81 million compared to a year ago.
Let's turn now to a detailed activity review of our media and Newen Studios business lines. As a reminder, TF1 reach is the key underpinning factor of the value we deliver to customers. In the first half of 2024, the group maintained an unrivaled position, gathering 54% of French people every day, well above any other media business, such as YouTube or any SVOD services, for instance. The group also achieved record audience shares, along with the fastest growth in the French audiovisual sector across commercial targets. Compared to H1 2023, audience share was up 1 point among women below 50, and 1.3 points, as I said before, among 25- to 49-year-olds. TF1 channel, our flagship, consolidated its leading position in the sector with several records during the first half.
Among women under 50, its audience share was at 23.3%, up 0.4 points, further widening the gap with its main competitor. The channel scored 49 of the top 50 ratings for this target group. Among those of 25- to 49-year-old, its audience share stood at 21%, up 1.1 points, again, significantly ahead of its main competitor. The channel also scored 47 of the top 50 ratings for this target group. Over the first semester, TF1 recorded the best ratings in each genre, and the best audience in France during H1, with 11.3 million viewers for the Austria-France football game. In H1, the strong performance of TF1 channel across all day parts confirmed the relevance of our programming strategy. It's notably illustrated by the relaunch of Plus belle vie-...
In the afternoon slot, which translated into an increase of audience share by 17 points among women below 50. We also maintain our leadership on access and prime time, and even improved by 0.5 points our audience share in access with our two other daily soaps, two other than Plus belle la vie , which is also a daily soap. As a reminder, the distinctiveness of the strategy implemented with TF1+ is to leverage our solid lineup to efficiently address both linear and non-linear exploitations, without incurring additional programming costs for non-linear. Non-linear represents now 22% of total usage among the 25- to 49-year-old on TF1 channel, compared to 14% a year ago. Overall, the group's strategy in streaming enable total audience to grow compared to last year. Let's turn now to our non-linear activity results.
The group's success in attracting linear audiences is a springboard for TF1+. The streaming platform made a very good start, translating into a 40% increase in its advertising revenue year-on-year, confirming its appeal for advertisers. As a reminder, our ambition with TF1+ is to create the leading free-to-use streaming platform, with the ambition to double the group market share in digital advertising market in the medium term. Our strategy funnel is constructed around five main building blocks: brand awareness, visibility, consumption, ad inventories, and monetization. During H1, we already made significant progress in the upstream part of the funnel. Brand awareness.
We implemented a strong marketing campaign early 2024, which demonstrated its effectiveness throughout the whole semester, illustrated by the increase in the aided awareness of TF1 platform, which reached 77% at the end of the month of May. Visibility. The development of long-term partnerships with all telcos and with connected TV suppliers and operating systems is bearing fruits. TF1+ was referenced in first visibility on connected TVs for 54% of households at the end of June 2024. Well above our target, as our goal was to reach 55% by the end of the year. Consumption. We worked on two levers to boost consumption. The first one is the relevance of the content lineup available on the platform.
As mentioned earlier, we implemented a virtuous linear and streaming programming, notably illustrated by the four major unscripted franchises heavily consumed on the platform in H1. The second lever is the addition of innovative features, such as the AI-enabled version of Top Chrono, launched before the Euro Championship. As a result, TF1+ established itself as a leader in terms of reach, with 33 million streamers per month on average across the first half, and more than 35 million in May. A new record, compared to 25 million streamers, which was our standard monthly viewing in 2023, with myTF1. TF1+ recorded almost 600 million streamed hours, according to Médiamétrie, representing 1.5x more than our closest competitor.
Based on our fact-centric figures, consumption jumped by 58% versus last year. TF1+ is clearly the pivot leader across all target audiences, especially the youngest, with a market share of 41% among individuals aged 15 to 34, and 38% among those aged 25 to 49. We keep working on each of these pillars to continuously enhance TF1+ performance. We are currently focusing on the following areas: ad inventories. Our goal is to increase the ad pressure, the ad load, in order to increase the ad inventories. At the end of June, the ad load was at around five minutes per hour on TF1+, higher than the average ad load that we had last year with myTF1, which was at four minutes per hour. These promising initial results should show that we are on track to achieve our target of six minutes per hour.
CPM on the value front, our aim is to increase CPM up to around EUR 15, notably through dataization, a comprehensive dataization of our advertising inventories. To illustrate, we launched a new development, a new feature, recommendation engine called Synchro in Q2 of this year. The pioneering joint-viewing recommendation algorithm, which encourages viewers to declare which family members are in front of the TV set. Thus, of course, multiplying the eyeballs we can monetize to the advertising market, to the advertisers. So the first half of 2024, we still increased our CPM value, which is now reaching a level of over EUR 12 at the end of June. Now some words on Newen Studios, our production unit. At Newen Studios, revenue amounted to EUR 120 million, down 10% year-on-year, in line with our expectation.
The activity for 2024 being most skewed to the fourth quarter. Newen Studios' current operating profit was at EUR 4 million in the first half of 2024, similar to the 2023 figure. The first half was marked by the launch of Plus belle la vie, encore plus belle for TF1, the delivery of the productions of The Cuckoo for Channel 5, of Watzmann for the WDR, as well as continued positive momentum in cinema with the movie, La Chasse Gardée, released in theaters at the end of 2023 and distributed by TF1 Studios. The renewal of the unscripted program, Le Magazine de la Santé, for a further two years, is exemplifying the normalization of TF1 Group relation with France Télévisions. In terms of external development, Newen Studios has just signed a binding agreement with Timothy O.
Johnson and the A&E Networks to acquire a 63% stake in the Johnson Production Group, JPG, a U.S. player in the production and distribution of TV movies in English. This investment is part of Newen's strategy to develop and acquire global IPs. It enables Newen Studios, which already owns a 65% stake in Reel One, the remainder being held by A&E Networks, to further strengthen its ambition in the dynamic and resilient TV movie market. It will also give Newen Studios privileged and long-term access to the North American market, with medium-term business levels fully secured by large output deals. Johnson Production Group had a 2023 revenue of around $60 million, which makes around EUR 55 million and an operating margin of around 30%.
Subject to the usual adjustments, the price paid for the sixty-three percent stake in JPG is expected around EUR 80 million. In connection with the transaction, A&E Networks would relinquish its option to sell its thirty-five percent stake in Reel One to Newen Studios, meaning that overall, these operations will reduce the group net cash position by around EUR 65 million only. This acquisition is expected to close during the quarter.
Thank you, Rodolphe. Now, let's move to a more detailed breakdown of our financial results for the first half of 2024. You will find additional information in our consolidated financial statements and their notes, as well as our management report, all of which are available on our website. TF1 Group's consolidated revenue amounted to EUR 1.1 billion in the first half of 2024, up 6.3% year-on-year and in line with our company-compiled consensus. The group recorded a solid growth of 7.4% in linear and digital advertising revenue, totaling EUR 802 million. This performance reflects a more favorable macroeconomic context compared to last year and the launch of our new streaming platform, TF1+.
Advertising revenue for TF1+ was EUR 65 million in H1, a 40% growth year-on-year, which is way above the market and confirms the appeal of the platform for advertisers. Again, we are only talking about advertising revenue here, as a broader streaming definition would be in the area of EUR 100 million. Newen Studios posted total revenue of EUR 120 million, down 10%, in line with the expectation of a 2024 activity, mostly skewed to H2. Now, let's move to slide 13 on current operating profits from activities. The group's current operating profit from activities amounted to EUR 129 million in the first half of 2024, in line with the company-compiled consensus.
Margin was 11.7% compared to 14.7% in the first half of 2024, in line with the phasing of the year and not representative of the evolution expected for the full year. COPA, in the media segment, came to EUR 125 million, with an increase in programming costs year-on-year, notably related to the Euro tournament. With a more favorable advertising market in 2024, programming costs returned to a level close to the first half of 2022, when there were no major sports events.... Média COPA also includes for TF1+, non-recurring expenses related to the launch of the platform and recurring costs progressively covered by the optimization plan. Newen Studios COPA was EUR 4 million, close to 2023 figure. Let's turn to our optimization plan.
As we mentioned, when announcing our H1 2023 results, we've been optimizing our cost base to finance our digital acceleration program. As a reminder, our target is to reach more than EUR 40 million in savings on real estate, IT, procurement, and organization costs from 2025 onwards. Out of these savings, a portion of circa EUR 15 million of recurring reinvestment will be made on, in our digital plan, covering mostly tech, in relation to improving and scaling the streaming platform, and HR in order to acquire new skills for our digital acceleration. At the end of June, more than 55% of savings are secured at 50% of the timeline, so we are ahead of schedule. On page 15, regarding the income statement, I have already commented the consolidated revenue and current operating profits from activities.
Looking for the down operating profit after other operating income and expense, stood at EUR 128 million, including EUR 13 million of non-recurring expenses, mainly related to an extension of the agreement on jobs and career management signed in July 2023. Net profit attributable to the group was EUR 96 million, broadly stable year-on-year, notably benefiting from financial income on surplus cash. Let's now analyze the evolution of the net cash position on page 16. Net cash to the EUR 447 million at end June 2024, compared with EUR 505 million at the end of December 2023. A decrease of circa EUR 60 million post-dividend payment of EUR 116 million.
Pre-cash flow amounted to EUR 76 million and EUR 65 million after a change in working capital, reflecting an operating cash flow of EUR 223 million, broadly stable year-on-year. Lease obligation of -EUR 5 million, improving by EUR 10 million year-on-year. Net CapEx of EUR 142 million, an increase of circa EUR 30 million year-on-year, roughly half coming from Newen, reflecting productions to be delivered in H2 2024, and half coming from our media segment, notably with co-production CapEx and the acquisition of rights. Changes in working cap of -EUR 10 million, reflecting more usual flows compared with an inflow of +EUR 54 million last year, when we had collected payments linked to the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Acquisitions and disposal for EUR 8 million, notably related to the acquisition by Newen of Dog Haus in Germany, that we already talked about at the beginning of the year, and the buyout of non-controlling interest at Newen level.
Outlook. Now, the next few months will be marked by a reinforced lineup for both linear and streaming, with a significant number of franchises compared to last year, including new programs in all genres in our programming lineup. On French series, HPI is coming back in H2 for the second part of the fourth season, and TF1 will also broadcast new landmark programs such as Brocéliande and the much-awaited Cat's Eyes. On unscripted, strong franchises are set to return, such as Koh-Lanta, Star Academy, and The Voice Kids, all of which being serialized programs with strong linear and nonlinear consumption.
TF1 will also continue adapting franchises that have already demonstrated their appeal in other countries, like Gladiators, to the French market. On sport, this includes, of course, the last 5 games of the Euro tournament in July, including France semifinal, which represents the best rating of the year so far, with 16.1 million viewers. France football team will then return on TF1 with the UEFA Nations League, and the group will also broadcast major rugby tournaments, rugby, sorry, tournaments with the Autumn Nations Series and the WXV for women for the first time. In digital, the group will unlock additional potential from the operational optimization of TF1+. We'll keep working actively on increasing awareness, visibility, daily consumption, and we'll focus on increasing ad load and improving CPM, all the key pillars of the funnel of the revenue building of TF1+.
The group will extend its range of program through a unique and new aggregation strategy for TF1+, a new strategy in the free streaming platform, which will enable to add new content at no additional programming cost for TF1+. The group intends to capitalize on TF1+' appeal and success to attract leading third-party content publishers.
Initial milestone in that direction was reached in July with when the audio-visual content from L'Équipe TV, Le Figaro TV, and Deezer arrived on the platform. This strategy contributes to the rapid expansion and diversification of TF1+ catalog, with now 20,000 hours of content available at any time, compared to 15,000 hours when TF1+ launched in January, back in January. The group will also accelerate the rollout of TF1+, after a very promising start in France, by extending its distribution to other French-speaking markets. Since June, TF1+ has been available in Belgium and Luxembourg on all connected devices. This expansion is the first phase of a large-scale rollout, including an introduction into Switzerland in September and the rest of the Francophone world later. To sum up, coming to the guidance.
TF1+ delivered a robust performance in the first half of the year, strengthened its audience leadership and increased its advertising revenues, both in-app and in streaming. TF1+ got off to a very good start and confirmed its growth potential, demonstrating the relevance of the group digital acceleration strategy initiated last year. COPA is in line with expectations, and the group benefits from a strong financial position. In this context, the group confirms its objectives for 2024, keep growing in digital, building on the promising launch of TF1+, maintain a broadly stable current operating margin from activities, continue to generate solid cash flow, enabling the group to aim for a growing dividend policy over the next few years. Now, we are ready to take your questions.
Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please, please press star two. So far, we don't have any questions. Let me just remind you that if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. All right, so our first question is from Annick Maas of Bernstein. Please go ahead.
I was just wondering if you could give us a bit of an indication of what you see in terms of advertising trends over the next month? That would be great. Thank you.
Well, on this subject, we perceive the advertising demand for the next few months, even though, as usual, we should say that, well, visibility in our sector is not very pregnant. But what I could say is that the demand is very solid. The first half of the year has been very solid in terms of demand, as you've seen. And we believe that the remainder of the year will stay also solid.
As you probably know, the consensus of the consulting firms on the evolution of the advertising market for France in 2024 stands at around +3%. We concur with this kind of order of magnitude. Across all the conversation we have with our customers, be they advertisers or media agencies, media buying agencies, we see no signal that the demand should anyhow decelerate.
Great, that's very clear. Thank you very much.
Well, again, Annick, well, visibility as usual. Well, I should take the premise while saying that, well, visibility remains short term on our kind of business.
Yes, thank you.
All right. Our next question is from Conor O'Shea from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions, a couple questions. So I see a few, I might have missed this on the, on the call, but, which is overlapping another call. But, in terms of the growth in, digital revenues on, TF1+, slower in the second quarter, is there a sense that, when you have big, live events, like the Euro 2024, that proportionately that benefits more linear advertising, and there's a bit of a slowdown in, digital? That's the first question. Secondly, with the non-renewal of the TNT license for C8, announced, do you think that maybe, some of your channels can benefit from that in terms of market share, like, TMC?
And then thirdly, just on the studios, are you still expecting a pickup in the second half of the year? Has anything changed, in that respect?
Well, on the growth in digital, well, we have, we have enjoyed, we have enjoyed very solid growth in our digital revenues over the first semester, with +40.4% versus last year. It was a bit more in Q1, a bit less in Q2, but when we look at the trend in Q3, well, we will remain in the same kind of order of level as we enjoyed in the first semester. What could it be a hypothesis that there was slight deceleration in the growth of the digital revenues in Q2 because of the broadcast of the Euro Championship on TF1? The answer, in my view, is no. Why?
We see no cannibalization from linear to digital. But the opposite is true also. We see no cannibalization from non-linear to digital. Why? Our strategy in non-linear with our digital strategy with TF1+ is not and it's different from our peers to consolidate our linear revenues. We don't sell our digital advertising inventory, inventories, sorry, in bundle, in package, with our linear inventories. Our approach is the following: we have a linear product which is providing very good service, linear inventories to advertisers in a linear market, which is more or less stable, in which the key notion is the market share.
We are concentrating on the audience share of our channels, the share of the ad inventory that we produce in the French market, which is around 41% of the inventories. We produce 41% in inventories as the key underpinning factor for our share of that market. What we do with digital, we are trying to be relevant for advertisers which invest advertising money in video digital advertising, with players like, and it's illustrative list, Facebook, YouTube, and the other social networks. And our aim is to produce advertising inventories which are big enough to be relevant for the advertisers playing in that sector and buying inventories, digital inventories with data in that sector, to take a share of that adjacent market.
That adjacent market weighs EUR 2 billion currently, at the moment, enjoys a growth of 15% year-on-year. And we want to take our fair share of that. Meaning that we are not -- we fight hard in order not to bundle and not to combine linear and non linear. And we are doing quite, quite well in that respect. Second question, DTT suppression of C8, which we need to represent an upside, possible upside for TMC, because C8 is a direct competitor for some time slots with TMC.
Well, probably very small upside, but, well, in my view, not significant at the group level. C8 had a market share, rating share, share of ratings in France on the wide targets, in individual age 4+, of 3.5%, same as TMC. They were co-leading the DTT channel group. But if you take the commercial targets, individual age 25 to 49, or women below 50, then, well, TMC has a much higher market share, above 4.5%, and C8 stood at around 2.5%.
Meaning that the ad inventories, which will be liberated, if I may say so, sorry, it's not very good, but by the suppression of C8, are quite minor. And if they are distributed more or less evenly across the remaining channel, well, the impact will be very, very slight. Last question, what your topic, please? I can't remind it.
It was about Studio Canal. I think you were asking about the pickup at the end of the year.
Mm-hmm.
Yes, this is the case. We are, as we said at the beginning of the year, we are -- we expect an activity for Newen skewed to H2, the last quarter.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you, guys.
All right. We don't have any other questions. If you would like to make a follow-up or ask a question, please press star one. We will give it a few seconds in case you would like to make a few more questions or any type of follow-up. All right. I see no more questions. With that, I will hand it back to your host for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Yes, I would say in the form of a closing remarks, that well, TF1+ delivered a very robust performance in the first half of the year with a very strong audience in the commercial targets, and also an increase in advertising revenues, both in linear and in streaming, with, in our view, no cannibalization. Very importantly, TF1+ got off to a very good start and confirmed a strong growth potential, demonstrating the relevance of our unique, I would say, digital strategy. Capex is fully in line with our expectations, and the group enjoys a very solid financial position. And all that enables us to fully reiterate and confirm our objectives for 2024. We'll continue to grow in digital.
We'll maintain a broadly stable, current operating margin for activities, and we'll continue to focus on delivering solid cash flow to, enable us to, aim for a growing dividend policy. That's all for us. With that, I wish you very good holidays for those, who are taking holidays, and even for the French people. And I'll see you, in October for our third quarter results. Thank you.
All right. Thank you very much. You may now disconnect.