Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the conference call for RTL Group's full-year results 2024. I'm Moritz, the call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference at this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Oliver Fahlbusch. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our analyst call for RTL Group's full-year results 2024. The speakers for today's presentation are Thomas Rabe, the Group's CEO, Elmar Heggen, our Deputy CEO and COO, Björn Bauer, our CFO, and Stephan Schmitter, the CEO of RTL Deutschland. Our management team will first guide you through the presentation. Afterwards, we will take your questions. The presentation for this call is available on our corporate website, rtl.com, following the link included in our press release under download. The agenda on slide two shows the areas our management team will cover today. With this, over to you, Thomas.
Yes, thank you, Oliver, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the time to join us on this call. Today, we'll take you through our full-year results 2024, the outlook for 2025, and an update, and we'll update you on our strategy and growth plans. A special welcome to Stephan Schmitter. After our outlook statements, he will present in more detail our largest streaming service, RTL+ in Germany, and how RTL+ will reach profitability next year. After that, we're happy to answer your questions. Starting on slide four, let me point out the highlights. In 2024, RTL Group once again demonstrated resilience and achieved solid results despite a challenging market environment, in particular in Germany. Our streaming services continue to grow dynamically in all key dimensions: number of paying subscribers, viewing hours, subscription, and advertising revenue.
As a result, the streaming startup losses decreased significantly, and we are firmly on track to reach our long-term streaming targets and profitability in 2026. Our German family of TV channels continues to perform strongly, increasing its audience lead over ProSiebenSat.1 and further increasing its share of the German TV advertising market. As a result, TV advertising revenue across the group remained stable in 2024. We further strengthened our global content business, Fremantle, with a significant overhead reduction and the EBITDA contribution from our Asacha Media Group, acquired in March last year. Fremantle reached a record result in 2024 and significantly improved its operating margins. Our strong results and cash flows enable us once again to pay an attractive dividend of EUR 2.50 per share. To summarize, we are investing in the transformation of our businesses, and we reached turning points in our streaming services and content production business.
As a result, we expect to significantly increase our Adjusted EBITDA to around EUR 780 million in 2025 and continuously thereafter. Finally, an update on the planned sale of RTL Nederland to DPG Media. The sale is still in investigation of the The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets , ACM, is ongoing, and both we and the buyer, DPG Media, are fully cooperating with the regulator. We remain confident to obtain approval and to close the transaction in the second quarter of 2025. Over to Björn, who will now take you through the group's financials in more detail.
Yeah, thank you, Thomas. Good morning, everyone. As a short reminder, our operating segment, RTL Nederland, is classified as a disposal group held for sale and is presented as a discontinued operation in our consolidated accounts for the year 2024. In accordance with IFRS 5, discontinued operations are reported separately from continuing operations, and if not indicated otherwise, all figures in this presentation refer to continuing operations, i.e., without RTL Nederland. Let's start with a look at our key financials on slide six. The TV advertising markets in our two key territories, Germany and France, were slightly down or flat over the full year and weaker than expected in the second half of the year. Nevertheless, and thanks to market share gains in Germany, we managed to keep TV advertising revenue across the group stable in 2024.
The same is true for Fremantle's revenue, with a positive scope effect primarily from the acquisition of Asacha Media Group, which was offset by lower-than-expected growth of the global production market. On the other hand, our streaming businesses continued to grow dynamically. Streaming revenue was up 42% in 2024. As a result of these effects, RTL Group's revenue was only slightly up to EUR 6.25 billion in 2024. Adjusted for portfolio changes and at constant exchange rates, group revenue was down 1.5% organically. Our Adjusted EBITDA decreased to EUR 722 million in line with the guidance we provided one year ago. The decrease was mainly due to the lower profit contributions from group entities, partly offset by higher contributions from Fremantle and significantly lower streaming startup losses at RTL Deutschland.
The Adjusted EBITDA decreased to EUR 992 million, and as EBITDA is a metric most used by Fremantle's competitors and also by analysts for the variation of content businesses, we will primarily comment on Adjusted EBITDA going forward when we present Fremantle's operating profits. For the group overall and for all other businesses, Adjusted EBITDA remains the key performance indicator for operating profitability. Total group profit was EUR 555 million, with EUR 428 million coming from continuing operations. Now, earnings per share were broadly stable versus prior year at EUR 2.97 per share. A few words on the performance of RTL Nederland. As we also present the performance figures on this slide, RTL Nederland grew both revenue and Adjusted EBITDA in 2024, driven by the continued growth of Videoland, which for the first time generated a substantial profit contribution. Moving on to the next slide.
If you break down our continuing operations by revenue stream instead of business unit, you can see our total revenue is well diversified, with 38% from TV advertising and 32% from content. Thanks to our transformation strategy and to active portfolio management, we have significantly reduced the group's dependency on TV advertising revenue, which is more cyclical in nature. Three years ago, in 2021, 46% of our total revenue came from TV advertising. Revenue from other rights exploitation captures export revenue from our major streaming services and, among others, group entities or the di vision rights business, SND. Streaming revenue includes export revenue, digital advertising, and distribution revenue, all of which were up significantly in 2024. This variety reflects the hybrid business model of our streaming services.
The strategy of streaming revenue, as a share of streaming revenue of RTL Group's total revenue, grew from 4.5% in 2023 to 6.4% in 2024. If you look at our main broadcasting businesses, the share of streaming revenue was 10% in 2024. Moving on to slide eight and looking at the main items below Adjusted EBITDA down to group profit. The EUR 87 million significant special items mainly reflect cost efficiency measures at RTL Deutschland and Fremantle. We can see an improvement of almost EUR 40 million compared to 2023, when the restructuring of RTL Deutschland's publishing business resulted in higher one-offs. Another positive impact came from the line fair value measurement of investments and remeasurement of earn-out arrangements. As you know, we sold our interest in SpotX to the U.S. ad- tech company, Magnite, in April 2021 and received part of the consideration shares.
Magnite's share price increased significantly in the first nine months of 2024, leading to a remeasurement of the Magnite shares amounting to EUR 40 million. In September, we sold all our remaining shares. I will come back to this in a minute with the cash flow statement. The financial result was EUR 32 million compared to EUR 30 million in 2023, mainly due to higher interest expenses. Group's tax charge came in at EUR 152 million. The reported tax rate in 2024 was 26%. The normalized tax rate, i.e., without special items, was 33%. Moving on to slide nine with a closer look at our cash flow. Until the closing of the planned sale of RTL Nederland, RTL Group will continue to benefit from all cash flows and profits generated by RTL Nederland. On this slide, we present pro forma figures for our cash flow.
Total net cash from operating activities, including RTL Nederland, increased by more than 40% to EUR 761 million. The net cash outflow for acquisitions and disposal was EUR 46 million. The main items here were the outflow for the acquisition of Asacha Media Group and the inflows from the disposal of shares, primarily the Magnite shares. The operating cash conversion rate for continuing operations was 102%, a significant improvement from 68% in 2023. At the end of December, RTL Group had net debt of EUR 492 million. Our net debt to Adjusted EBITDA ratio stands at approximately 0.4 times. As announced in our RTL analyst call in August, this is a significant reduction from the EUR 1.1 billion net debt at the end of June 2024. Let's move on to slide 10, our dividend proposal.
Our dividend policy is based on the group's full-year profits attributable to RTL Group shareholders and adjusted for any material non-cash impact. We target a payout ratio of at least 80%. In line with this dividend policy, our board has proposed a dividend of EUR 2.50 per share for 2024, corresponding to an 83% payout ratio. The contribution of RTL Nederland to this proposed dividend is EUR 0.70. Based on the average share price for 2024, the proposed dividend represents a dividend yield of 8.3%. Taking the proposed dividend for 2024 into account, RTL Group will have returned around EUR 2.7 billion or EUR 17.25 per share to its shareholders from 2021 to 2025. The dividend proposal for the financial year 2024 does not yet include the significant value crystallized by the planned sale of RTL Nederland.
With an expected capital gain of around EUR 0.8 billion, which will be mostly alone, would result in an extraordinary dividend from cash capital gain of EUR 4 plus per share after closing of the transaction. For the business review, I will now hand over to Elmar.
Thank you, Björn, and good morning. For the business review, I will start with RTL Deutschland on slide number 12. In 2024, our largest business unit significantly advanced its market positions in linear TV and streaming. We estimate that the German net TV advertising market was down -2% to -3% in 2024, with RTL Deutschland significantly outperforming the market. RTL Deutschland reached a combined average audience share of 26.3% in the target group of viewers aged 14 to 59, increasing the lead over the main commercial competitor ProSiebenSat.1 from 5.8 to 6.3 percentage points. This is the biggest lead in over 10 years. Our flagship channel, RTL, was the only major commercial TV channel to achieve year-on-year growth in all relevant target groups in a year of major sporting events that were largely available on the public broadcasters. In streaming, RTL+ continued its rapid growth.
Paying subscribers were up 23% year-on-year to almost EUR 6.1 million at the end of December, while viewing time increased by 67%. Looking now at the financials of RTL Deutschland in 2024, RTL Deutschland's revenue grew by 1.4% to EUR 2.66 billion, mainly thanks to strong growth in streaming. This was partly offset by lower revenue from the publishing business due to the sale and discontinuation of some magazine titles in 2023. Adjusted EBITDA increased 2% to EUR 327 million. Lower streaming startup losses had a positive impact, but higher content costs for the UEFA Euro 2024 matches largely balanced this out. Moving now to Groupe M6 on slide number 13. Total revenue of Groupe M6 was stable at EUR 1.31 billion. Rapid streaming growth was offset by scope effects and slightly lower TV advertising revenue.
Adjusted EBITDA decreased to EUR 253 million, mainly due to higher content costs, primarily for the broadcast of the UEFA Euro 2024 matches and higher streaming costs due to the investments in M6+ . The launch of M6+ has been a major success. Compared to the previous service 6play , M6+ registered 30% more monthly users and increased streaming hours by 35%. M6+ now attracts the youngest audience amongst free and French streaming services. According to Médiamétrie, M6+ was also the market leader in time spent per user on French streaming services in the age group 25 to 49. That is now turned toward global content business, Fremantle. In 2024, the international market for content production was still impacted by the 2023 U.S. strikes and by budget cuts from streaming services and advertising-financed broadcasters.
We have seen this over the past weeks in the figures disclosed, among others, for ITV Studios and Banijay Productions. Organically, Fremantle's revenue was down 8%. On a reported basis, Fremantle's revenue was stable at EUR 2.25 billion due to scope effects from the acquisition of Asacha Media Group. Adjusted EBITDA, the metric used by most of Fremantle's competitors, increased strongly to EUR 260 million, representing a margin of 11.5%. This was slightly above the average EBITDA margin in the content production market of around 11%. Adjusted EBITDA was also up strongly to EUR 171 million, the company's highest result ever. The increase was driven by a significant reduction of overhead costs and by the first-time contributions of Asacha Media Group. I will now hand you back to Thomas, who will take you through the strategy update and the outlook for 2025.
Yeah, many thanks, Elmar and Björn. Let's turn to slide 16. Our strategy framework is based on three priorities: core, growth, and alliances and partnerships. Core means investing in premium content, strengthening our family channels, as well as cost and portfolio management. Growth areas are streaming services, advertising technology and addressable TV, as well as content production with Fremantle. Alliances and partnerships span from advertising sales and content production to technology and data. Moving to slide 17. Strengthening our core business means, above all, investing in premium content. In 2024, our main TV channels and streaming service in Germany and France achieved excellent audience performances, with matches for the UEFA European Championship, while the UEFA Champions League had a strong start at RTL+ in Hungary. Exclusive rights for live sports events are essential for both linear TV and streaming.
They reach mass TV audiences, attract new subscribers to our streaming services, and drive engagement across all platforms. We continue to invest selectively and, in 2024, secure additional premium sports rights. For example, Groupe M6 acquired the exclusive free-to-air rights for most matches of the FIFA World Cup 2026 and 2030, and RTL Deutschland acquired highlight rights for the German Football League for RTL+ and additional free-to-air rights for the NFL. Moving on to slide 18 and to our global content business, Fremantle. Over the past year, Fremantle has significantly grown its portfolio across all genres and regions, with acquisitions in the Nordics, the U.S., Italy, France, the U.K., Asia, and Australia. Following the acquisitions of Asacha Media Group and Beach House Pictures at the start of 2024, the focus of Fremantle shifted to post-merger integration and margin improvements. Elmar already pointed to the significant overhead reductions in 2024.
In the strategy review in the first quarter of 2025, Fremantle's management team defined five top priorities. First, long-running formats and IP rights are the foundation of the content business of Fremantle. Fremantle has a proven track record in developing strong format brands and rolling them out across the globe. To further expand our IP portfolio, we ramp up Fremantle's own IP development and invest accordingly. Secondly, we explored the use of AI across the content development and production value chain. Several pilots have demonstrated the potential for significant productivity gains. We've now started to systematically deploy AI at Fremantle. Thirdly, we see only limited scale returns for large mergers in the content production space. Therefore, we'll continue to focus on IP-driven acquisitions of small and medium-sized production companies. Fourth, these acquisitions will help to grow our presence in attractive geographies and genres.
Fifth, we plan to further increase Fremantle's Adjusted EBITDA margin to 9% by 2026 by scaling the organization with continued cost discipline and by deploying AI. Given the high quality of earnings, we expect that Fremantle will generate operating cash conversion rates of 90%-100%. In 2025, Fremantle's Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be only up slightly due to the investments in IP and AI, which I alluded to. Now, let's turn to slide 19 with a closer look at our streaming services. Streaming is at the core of the transformation of the TV industry. We're very pleased with the dynamic growth in the past six years. Paying subscribers grew by a factor of 8.7 times over the past six years and were up 21% in 2024 to almost EUR 6.8 million. The partnership with Deutsche Telekom remains a growth driver.
Already mentioned, we're delighted about the extension until at least 2030. RTL Group's streaming revenue was up 42% in 2024 as we increased subscription prices in Germany with no significant additional churn and boosted advertising revenue on both M6+ in France and RTL+ in Germany. To summarize, we have invested significantly in content and tech and marketing and defined ambitious midterm targets for our streaming services, which are now clearly in sight. By 2024, we aim to reach 9 million paying subscribers and around EUR 700 million streaming revenue. We plan to increase our content spend to around EUR 500 million and, most importantly, to become profitable. Moving on to slide 20, the key steps for the remaining parts of profitability are well-defined and we're making progress across the board.
I'll be brief on this, as Stephan Schmitter will present more details for RTL+ in Germany in a few minutes. We'll continue to grow our subscriber base by offering attractive exclusive content and by addressing new target groups. We'll increase revenue per subscriber by increasing prices and growing both advertising and distribution revenue. Finally, we're optimizing the cost base of our streaming services. In 2024, we announced that our largest streaming service, RTL+ in Germany, will migrate to the Bedrock technology platform, which already serves M6+ in France, Videoland in the Netherlands, and RTL+ in Hungary. The goal is to complete the migration in early 2026, creating a true European champion streaming technology. Moving on to slide 21, we continue to actively build alliances and partnerships. Last year, we forged the content partnership with Sky Deutschland and the ad tech partnership with ProSiebenSat.1.
At the same time, we've significantly stepped up internal collaboration, as evidenced by the planned migration of RTL+ in Germany to the Bedrock platform. Similarly, the advertising sales house of our Groupe M6 will progressively integrate smart tech solutions. AI technology has the power to fundamentally transform our businesses by enhancing creativity and driving productivity. We're investing in AI, training our workforce, and have entered into partnerships with AI companies such as OpenAI and Perplexity. In streaming, Bedrock will benefit from the partnership with OpenAI and will, for example, significantly improve its recommendation algorithms. RTL Deutschland is working with OpenAI on its Newsroom of the Future initiative launched last year. The project aims to support journalists by giving them more time for core tasks. Other AI projects focus on marketing, advertising, video generation, and audio production. Now, let's turn to the outlook for 2025.
The geopolitical and macroeconomic environment is more volatile than ever, and the impact on RTL Group's business cards predicts. Assuming at least stable TV advertising revenue across the group, we expect full-year revenue to increase to around EUR 6.45 billion, driven by significantly higher streaming revenue and portfolio effects. We expect our Adjusted EBITDA to increase strongly to around EUR 780 million, mainly due to another significant reduction of streaming startup losses from EUR 137 million in 2024 to around EUR 80 million this year. We expect another backlog this year, meaning that a significant part of our profits will be generated in the second half and, in particular, in the fourth quarter. Hence, we will keep a or continue to keep a close eye on current trading and would implement cost measures early on to reach full-year profitability and the outlook.
Beyond 2025, we expect that our Adjusted EBITDA will instead increase towards EUR 1 billion. This will be driven by five factors. First, slight recovery of the German TV advertising market, fueled in part by the significant infrastructure and security investments planned by the new government. Second, continued outperformance by RTL Deutschland. Third, profitability of our streaming services. Fourth, stream ad growth and margin expansion. Fifth, AI productivity gains. Finally, our dividend policy will remain unchanged. RTL Group will continue to pay out at least 80% of the adjusted full-year net result, thus maintaining the balance between investing in the transformation of our business while ensuring attractive cash returns to our shareholders. As mentioned by Björn, our shareholders will benefit from the significant capital gain resulting from the planned sale of RTL investments. This brings us to the end of our general presentation.
I'd like to hand over to Stephan Schmitter to present the strong position we've achieved with RTL+ in Germany, in German streaming, and how the service will become profitable in the next two years. Stephan, over to you.
Thank you, Thomas, and hello, everyone. Thank you for listening. I'm Stephan Schmitter, the CEO of RTL Deutschland. I joined RTL more than 20 years ago and have led over the years, among others, our German radio business and the news operations at RTL Deutschland. Before taking over as CEO in 2024, I was responsible for all content and brands of RTL Deutschland. Today, I'll take you through the strategic priorities for RTL+, our growth trajectory, and our path to profitability in 2026. Moving on to the next slide. In Germany, RTL+ stands out as the only local player successfully competing in both linear TV and streaming under one strong. We are the must-have local entertainment choice with live TV brands, live TV, and live sports, as well as rich exclusive and non-exclusive on-demand content. We clearly observe advertising and streaming is gaining significance and acceptance among customers.
This plays to our strengths. For example, our sales house Ad Alliance boosts our advertising reach and revenues. Looking at the wider Bertelsmann portfolio to enhance our multi-entertainment offering to consumers, for example, via audiobooks from Penguin Random House available on RTL+. We push the RTL+ offering into the market through our extensive RTL product universe in Germany, from TV trailers through radio and our publishing assets such as n-tv.de and Stern. In the bigger picture, market dynamics provide tailwinds for RTL+. Let's look at video consumption on the next slide. Video consumption continues to dominate the media usage of Germans with almost four hours per day on the big screen, still a very impressive figure. We, of course, see a clear shift towards non-linear viewing.
In the age group of 14 to 59 years, this already accounts for 35% of viewing, and it is much higher for younger audiences. The market potential for streaming in Germany remains huge, with an estimated 100-120 million potential subscriptions. Our goal is to capitalize on the shift from linear to streaming and establish RTL+ as a top three player in the market. Looking at the next slide, we can see how the market has developed over the past few years. The German streaming subscription market has doubled in size since 2020 and today counts 72 million subscriptions. RTL+ shows the fastest growth in the entire market, on average more than 50% per year since 2020, significantly outgrowing the market average growth of 15% per year. Today, we count more than 6.1 million subscribers, which means 8%-9% of all subscriptions.
Moving to the next slide. Our dynamic growth is the result of making the right strategic choices, and we expect our growth to continue. Today, we rank fourth in the market by paying subscribers, with Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Disney+ ahead of us. We are the clear number two by daily usage. This point is very important. To further grow, the monetization of advertising and streaming requires volume in watched hours. It also shows how relevant RTL+ and our content is to our subscribers, and it is the most important KPI for churn management. Our goal is to reach around 8 million paying subscribers and around 25% of all German-speaking households on the DACH market and thus profitability in 2026. Our current position versus our main competition gives us great confidence to achieve this. Moving on to the next slide.
Compared to our local AVOD competitor, Joyn, RTL+ maintains leadership across all important dimensions. With 650 million watched hours in 2024 and 67% growth year- on- year, we further established our leading position in the German streaming space in terms of usage and engagement. We are significantly larger than Joyn in terms of paying subscribers, watched hours, and even net reach, and this as a hybrid SVOD offer. Now, let's look ahead. As stated, our goal is to reach profitability with RTL+ in 2026. We are well on track with key initiatives underway to pave the way. For example, our new growth target groups, such as families with children. As Thomas renewed and extended our partnership with Deutsche Telekom with a five-year distribution deal, which will generate significant additional revenues.
We are also looking at further price increases and the continued focus on video content going forward to boost our live sports and fiction offering, as well as our advertising reach. The migration of RTL+ in Germany to Bedrock and AI-driven efficiency will further support our journey to establish the long-term success of RTL+. The Bedrock project alone will generate substantial and long-term technology cost savings. We significantly cut streaming startup losses for RTL+ in Germany in 2024 and will further cut them in half this year. Allow me to share some more insights into two important drivers for profitability: our approach to pricing and content. In summer 2024, we adjusted our tiering structure and introduced a fourth plan, the advertising heavy basic plan for EUR 5.99 per month. This move was well received by our subscribers with no impact on churn.
This step increased our ARPU by more than 25% and already doubled our run rate advertising revenue as of today. The new tiering approach gives us access to new consumer groups and provides better upselling opportunities. At the same time, we can maximize the subscription and advertising revenue potential. Future price increases will boost our ARPU and help us recoup our content investments. Let's look at these on the next slide. On content, we have established ourselves as the local home of reality and have successfully convinced millions of subscribers with our TV best brand and shows like I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, Let's Dance, or the daily soap, Good Times, Bad Times, which is doing fantastically for us since 1992. In 2024, we've invested around 50% of our RTL+ content budget into TV content and reality formats, where we have the leading market position.
We have a clear content investment strategy in place to push further into streaming and grow by expanding our live sports position and fiction portfolio. In fiction, for example, we have recently added the Barbie movie, which is generating great inflow numbers for us. Our goal is here to expand our offering of premium U.S. fiction movies and series such as Barbie, Harry Potter, and The Good Doctor, as well as adding selected local fiction, talk of town highlights. In terms of live sports, we are already home to number one sports competitions such as the UEFA Europa and Conference League, the American NFL, and the emerging mixed martial arts trends.
In January, we will invest further and look at all relevant upcoming sports tenders, as we already did with the new highlights rights for all matches of the first and second Bundesliga, starting with the new season in August 2025. We view these rights as must-see content for sports enthusiasts in the German-speaking countries and as very important for our content strategy. They allow us to showcase again the enormous power of combining linear and streaming under one brand and one company. Let's look at the Bundesliga sports rights in more detail. Our linear flagship channel, RTL, will host top matches of the second Bundesliga on Saturday evening. Often, these matches feature some of the most iconic German football clubs with huge fan bases.
These games will not only be doing great on linear TV, but are the perfect marketing platform to promote the streaming rights we acquired for RTL+. This will be the first streaming Bundesliga highlight show in the German market. These rights protect our linear audience shares and boost our live streaming capabilities, reach, and monetization. In short, another strong support for our market leadership in realities and shows. Moving on to the next slide. On the left, you can see the top streaming formats in Germany across all platforms and services by time spent. We are home to five of these ten most consumed formats. This underlines how established format brands from linear TV perform strongly on streaming too, with little to no cannibalization. These formats will continue to be a strong backbone of our content offering.
To wrap things up, we are on a clear path to turn RTL+ into a profitable and sizable business by 2026. We operate at scale in linear and streaming with one brand in growing markets with tailwinds and with an unmatched local content offering. We can bundle RTL+ with Deutsche Telekom's IPTV offering, MagentaTV, into almost all tech platforms on Bedrock. In addition, we are leveraging AI on customer engagement and customer care, thereby operating very efficiently. Hence, we have all we need to become Germany's top three streaming service. With that, I'm handing back to Thomas. Thank you very much for your attention.
Many thanks, Stephan, and thank you all for your attention. We are now ready to take questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on the touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift the headsets before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Annick Maas from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for the presentation. My first question is on the first quarter TV advertising environment in Germany, if you can give us a bit more ideas of what you've seen so far. My second one is on M6. You've been buying shares since the end of last year and into this year as well, which you hadn't done in a very long time with the plans that were supposed to happen in France a couple of years ago that didn't go through. Can you maybe tell us a bit more around the rationale of having bought or keeping on buying these shares? My last one was, I've been looking at the Fremantle margins and trying to look at other production distribution companies such as Banijay, for example. I see there's a big margin gap in between the two plays.
I kind of wanted to understand from your point of view, why do you think there is this margin gap? Thank you.
Okay, very good question. Thank you. Let me start with the TV market, advertising market in Germany. The market was broadly stable in January and February. Weaker in March, partly due to Easter and slightly stronger, most probably in April. Most importantly, we expect that RTL's advertising revenue will be flat on a full-year basis, gaining market share. We expect the market to be slightly down. This is what we're currently seeing. On M6, my background to M6 is that it's a 49% limit on shareholdings in companies that have an audience share of more than 8% and hold a license. I want to share that the share of market has dropped below 8% for the first time last year, which means that the 49% limit no longer applies to us and M6.
That has given us the opportunity or gives us the opportunity to increase our shareholding to above 50%. Let me put this into perspective, where there's absolutely no intention to make a takeover of it. All we'll be doing is to increase our shareholding to slightly above 50% to cement our control position. I think that is in the best interest of all shareholders. First time, as I said, the opportunity arose because of the audience. We are making use of this. At the same time, we consider the M6 share price to be low. Therefore, the increase of shareholding is also a good investment. I can tell you that it's very difficult to compare video production companies' margins.
One of the reasons we provided the EBITDA margin of Fremantle for the first time this year is that most video production companies competing with us report on the basis of EBITDA margins, for example, Banijay. We so far reported on the basis of EBITA only. If you look at our EBITDA margin of 11.5% and adjust for accounting differences between, you will come to the conclusion that the margin difference is minimal. If you look at our EBITA margin and compare it with Banijay and others, you'll come to a similar conclusion. The exception to this is ITV Studios, where the EBITA margin is higher. I assume that this is partly due to related parties and internal transfer pricing between the TV business and the production business.
Long story short, we looked into margins and margin comparisons in a lot of detail and concluded that there's hardly any margin difference between Fremantle and other players in the market.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Julien Roch from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking the questions. On Q1 ad trends, you gave us Germany. I wonder whether you could give us France, Hungary, and Netherlands in case the deal does not happen. Then our second question is streaming viewing in Germany, 649 million hours. Could we get total viewing? Also maybe the total viewing and the streaming minutes on 14 to 29, so we can compare where you are versus the data you put on page 25. Lastly, you're saying that Fremantle will reach EUR 3 billion of revenue in the medium term. I believe that before the target was 2026. What do you mean by medium term? Have you pushed back the EUR 3 billion target? Thank you.
Yeah, on Fremantle, yes, we've pushed back the EUR 3 billion revenue target for two reasons. First, the target is partly dependent on M&A, and we always said that. We're very selective on M&A. I'll just reiterate that we will not be involved in large-scale video production consolidation if it happens, because we believe that the scale effects are not sufficient to justify such transactions and the complexity related to such transactions. We are not going to be part of that.
On the advertising trends. Yeah, just briefly, in France, we expect broadly stable advertising revenues in the first quarter, and in Hungary, we expect revenues to be up in the first quarter. On the total minutes, however, this is 3+ . In Germany, we're at 18.22 billion in 2024. Of that, 649 million hours were non-linear, with a growth rate of 67%.
The share is up from 2% to 3.6% overall. On the 14 to 29 figures, we'll have to check, and we'll get back to you.
Just to add on Fremantle, I mean, if you look at the video production market, the heydays are over. The growth rates have come down significantly for all players. Obviously, there are different regional differences and also genre differences. Overall, the revenue growth expectations are down significantly from 4%-5% a few years ago to probably 1%-2% across all genres. This has an impact, of course, on achieving the EUR 3 billion target. It also means that we have shifted gears. As I said before in the intro remarks, we are now focusing increasingly on margin enhancement. The margin at Fremantle was up significantly last year. It will continue to increase. We believe that AI is going to make a huge difference because it will have a significant impact on the video production value chain.
The efficiency opportunities are significant, both for the video production companies, but of course, also for the customers who will ask for share and the tech providers. The fact that we've now said EUR 3 billion target medium term is just a reflection of reality of the market and the fact that we are very selective when it comes to small and medium-sized M&A.
Thank you very much.
Welcome.
The next question comes from Conor O'Shea from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Three quick questions from me as well. First, just to go back on the German TV advertising, I think your closest peer suggested down mid-single digit overall in Q1. Do you think you're doing a bit better than that? Again, second question, just on the streaming losses for the full year 2024 compared with what you were expecting at the first half, I understand that the increase in prices and up, is that the only factor, or did you make some adjustments in terms of what you spent versus what you expected to spend? Then the third question on Fremantle. Thanks for the guidance on 2026.
In terms of 2025, can we have a little bit more detail on what you expect in terms of underlying revenue growth compared to what you see in the order book and also should we expect to get a steady increase in the margins? Thank you.
On Fremantle, we expect top line to be broadly flat, which is a reflection of the market dynamics, which I mentioned. Maybe slightly up. Profitability, ruling fees. As I said in the intro remarks, we will significantly step up our investments in AI and IP development. This comes at a cost and will have an impact on short-term profitability. We believe that this is frankly in the best interest of the company and shareholders as AI is there to stay. As I said, it will have a profound impact on video production. Own IP development, of course, takes some effort and some investment. If done the right way, it is incredibly value-enhancing and much more so than acquired IP. You will see a slight step, slight profitability increase of Fremantle this year, but then a more significant increase.
As we see first returns in IP and AI in the subsequent years. As I said, a 9% EBITDA margin in 2026, which is significant, which would be a significant increase. On the streaming losses, yeah, I mean, we guided I believe for EUR 200 million losses. We ended the year at EUR 137 million, but we did not compromise on top line growth, as we mentioned. The streaming service, particularly RTL Deutschland, continues to grow dynamically in terms of number of subscribers and revenue. Yes, revenue came in broadly by expectations.
We made some adjustments to the cost base, but as I said, not detrimental of the top line growth, which shows that the business, as Stephan just presented, is managed very, very actively and with a very, very clear target of continuing top line growth and, importantly, achieving profitability in 2026, which will then increase continuously in the following years. The other point to mention on the cost base of streaming is the high synergies between linear TV and RTL+. Stephan, do you want to add anything to this?
Yeah, the combination, as I mentioned, is so strong because we can now exactly make a plan, format by format, where we play it out, first on linear or first on streaming platform. The combination to have this under one brand is very special in all Europe and the whole world because most of the streaming services have no linear television station. Some of the competitors, like our colleagues from Munich, have only a Joyn streaming platform, and that presumes that lineup of linear channels. To have this all under one brand, you can combine the best of both worlds. This is a really, really good position for us. That is why the growth is so big. It is huge in the last few years. That brings us to many, many new ideas in the future.
That is why we are totally convinced that we bring this service in 2026 to profitability.
Yeah. That is, of course, let me just come back to the kind of medium-term outlook I gave towards EUR 1 billion. I mean, it was minus EUR 137 million streaming startup losses. If you add this to the EUR 721 million of EBITDA this year, you're already at EUR 850 million. You assume that streaming will not only break even, but will become profitable. You add to this the 9% margin target for Fremantle, which is another 1.x% EBITDA margin increase. You add to this the other factors I mentioned, the slight recovery of Germany. Generally, the economy has been performing very, very poorly by any standard in the last years, including the TV advertising market. It's been the weakest in Europe in the last five years. This is what will bring us to that level.
In Q1 advertising, I mean, as I said, the guidance we provided, what the kind of broad guidance I provided for Germany is based on the latest facts and figures. I think it came out two weeks ago. We see weakness in March, as I said, partly explained by Easter, but not fully explained by Easter. We see a slight pickup in April because of Easter in April, but not sufficient to make up for the decline in March. I think the most important point is the full year outlook, which continues to be zero. We're continuing to gain market share, also based on the agreements entered into with agencies for the full year. Importantly, the RTL management manages the cost base very, very actively.
If we, for example, would not end the year with a flat advertising revenue, but advertising revenue is slightly down, we would compensate the effect by cost measures in order to hit the target results targets for RTL Deutschland and your target of EUR 780 million EBITDA for the group.
May I add one point? Just to say one thing, the last year quarter was very, very good, first quarter and the last year. Now the next quarters were all in a bad shape last year, second quarter, third quarter, and the fourth quarter. That is why we think there are a lot of chances coming up, especially if we get the political situation in Germany under control. That is why we are very confident at the end that the first quarter is not really good at the moment and that there are some effects in that quarter. At the end of the year, there are a lot of chances for us coming up. That is, I think, a big point to think about.
A very good point. The comps, which are on the risk in the first quarter, much less so the subsequent quarters. Clearly, as I said before, with the investment program that we have started, been announced, significantly biggest investment program in Germany ever, will have an effect on the economy, will have an effect on confidence, and will therefore also have an effect on advertising. Probably the ad market in Europe with the biggest potential for catch-up, given the weakest ad market in Europe. We lost EUR 1 billion of net advertising revenue in Germany since 2019. That is very significant by any standard.
Indeed. Could I ask just a quick follow-up on M6? What is your current, your most up-to-date stake versus the 49% threshold of the 50%+ that you're targeting? Also, just to clear up, I thought that the 8% threshold applied to the share as a group of channels. It applies to individual channels.
Only the main channel and M6, and on the shares we bought, Björn, since we decided to increase our shareholding?
Yeah. We acquired shares in Q4 and Q1, and we're currently at 48.8%. That's the shares we're holding directly. Of course, also treasury shares at the level of M6, including them, we will be slightly above 49% currently.
That is, of course, also the 1% limit of shares acquired, accumulated on a yearly basis. We will, of course, remain below this 1% because we have no intention to launch a takeover bid for Groupe M6. It would not make any sense for us. We believe the company is in good shape as a public company. No problem there. We will increase our shareholding instead to 50 point whatever, 51% maximum.
Okay. Okay. Perfect. Many thanks.
Sure.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one at this time. It seems there are no more questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Oliver Fahlbusch.
Thank you, everybody. Thank you for taking the time to listen on this call. If there are further questions coming up throughout the day, we are available to take your calls and answer your questions. Have a good day and talk to you soon. Bye-bye.