Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the conference call for analysts and investors for RTL Group's half-year results 2026. I am Moritz, your Chorus 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.
If you would like to ask a question from the webinar, you may click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen and then click the Raise Your Hand button. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. For operator assistance, please press the Operator Assistance button on the bottom left side of your screen. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Oliver Fahlbusch. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our analyst call for RTL Group's half-year results 2026. The speakers for today's presentation are Clément Schwebig, our CEO, and Björn Bauer, our CFO. 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. After the presentation, Clément and Björn are available to answer your questions. With this, I will hand over to Clément to run you through the highlights of the first half of 2026.
Thank you, Oliver, and good morning to you all. Thank you for joining us this morning. As you may know, I joined, or I should probably say I rejoined RTL Group in April and took over as CEO in May. Over the past few weeks, I have been meeting executive teams and experts across the group, but also our partners across the industry. I have to say, I am truly excited about the level of creativity, enthusiasm, and drive that I see throughout the organization. As this is my first analyst call as CEO of RTL Group, I look forward to engaging with many of you in the future, of course. Let me highlight the most important developments of the past six months before Björn will run you through the numbers in greater detail.
On slide four, the highlights. In the first six months of 2026, we delivered on our transformation strategy with very tangible results. We are executing with A, speed and B, importantly, discipline. Only 10 weeks ago, we successfully closed the Sky Deutschland transaction. I have to say, this is probably the most transformational deal in the history of RTL Group in the last 25 years of existence. We were successful in getting the approval of the European Commission, but we have done it without any remedies. Now our RTL Deutschland management team is moving quickly to integrate the businesses, and we are fully focused on delivering the EUR 250 million in synergies over the next three years.
Also, our streaming services continue to grow dynamically and deliver strong profitability. This is a real turning point in our operation. After years of carefully investing in content and tech infrastructure, our streaming is now high margin contributor and high growth segment at the same time. As a result, we now expect streaming to contribute around EUR 100 million to our full-year adjusted EBITA. In our linear TV business, we obviously face soft TV advertising market, which is in line with our expectation.
More importantly, we gained market share in both TV audience and TV advertising in our main territories, which are Germany and France. In France, it was clearly driven by the coverage of the football World Cup on M6 and M6+, a very powerful demonstration of the power of our content and brand. I have to say also the exceptional reach that TV offers in the current fragmented audience environment.
For the financial year 2026, we confirm our adjusted EBITA target of around EUR 725 million, which is in line with our previous guidance. We will look at the outlook in greater detail at the end of the presentation. At the same time, we confirm our medium-term adjusted EBITA target of EUR 1 billion, with streaming being the key driver for future profit growth at RTL. Now over to you, Björn, who will take you through the group's financial results in more detail.
Yeah. Thank you, Clément, and good morning, everyone. First, one comment regarding the presentation of our numbers. The Sky Deutschland acquisition closed on June 1st, 2026. So RTL Group's first half results include Sky Deutschland for one month, i.e. June, following its full consolidation. Let's start with a look at our key financials on slide six. In the first half of 2026, RTL Group's revenue grew 3.9% to EUR 2.9 billion, mainly driven by the acquisition of Sky Deutschland and continued streaming growth. Organically, group revenue was stable. Our adjusted EBITA increased from EUR 160 million- EUR 239 million.
This corresponds to a significant margin uplift from 5.8%- 8.3%. The strong increase was mainly driven by the streaming business and the acquisition of Sky Deutschland, as well as a higher contribution from Fremantle. Adjusted EBITA, excluding the impact from Sky Deutschland, was also up by EUR 18 million. Group profit from continuing operations increased significantly from EUR 6 million- EUR 61 million in the first half of 2026, mainly due again to the contribution of Sky Deutschland. Over to slide seven. Let's take a look at the development of our adjusted EBITA.
The bridge shows the various effects in the first half of 2026. First, as expected, we see lower contributions from the group's linear TV channels, mainly due to higher programming costs related to the football World Cup coverage of Groupe M6. However, secondly, the decrease was offset by significantly higher adjusted EBITA from streaming, up by EUR 65 million compared to the first half of 2025, confirming our transformation strategy.
Fremantle's adjusted EBITA increased by EUR 21 million- EUR 60 million and is well on track to reach the target margin of 9% in the full year 2026, as previously guided. Sky Deutschland contributed, that's a fourth point. Sky Deutschland contributed EUR 61 million to the group's adjusted EBITA in the first half of 2026. This is, however, not indicative of the full year adjusted EBITA contribution by Sky Deutschland, as the month of June is seasonally highly favorable, with no Bundesliga or German Cup football matches broadcast and no related sports rights and production costs incurred in June.
We'll come back to this later in the outlook presentation. Now let's take a closer look at the financial development across our main business units, and we're moving on to slide eight. I'd like to start with our largest unit, RTL Deutschland. Total revenue of RTL Deutschland was up 11.1% to EUR 1.3 billion. This strong increase was mainly driven by the scope effect from the Sky Deutschland acquisition and higher streaming revenue. Both effects more than compensated for lower linear TV revenue. The German NetTV advertising market remained challenging, estimated to be down between -6% to -7% compared to the first half of 2025.
Importantly, RTL Deutschland continued to outperform the market and gained both audience and advertising market shares. Adjusted EBITA increased from EUR 70 million in the first half of 2025 to EUR 129 million in the first half of this financial year, mainly due to the acquisition of Sky and the streaming service RTL+, which became profitable in the first half of 2026 as guided. As mentioned before, for Sky Deutschland, the month of June is seasonally favorable and not indicative for the full year.
RTL Deutschland, excluding Sky Deutschland, achieved a combined average audience share of 26.3% in the target group of viewers aged 14- 59. We therefore widened the lead over our main commercial competitor, ProSiebenSat.1, to 6.6 percentage points. Let's turn to France and take a brief look at Groupe M6. Total revenue of Groupe M6 increased by 1.7% to EUR 644 million. The main drivers were higher digital advertising revenue and significantly higher TV advertising revenue in June due to the broadcast of the football World Cup, offsetting the decrease of the linear TV advertising market in the first half of 2026.
The French linear TV advertising market was estimated to be down between -9% to -10% in the reporting period, with Groupe M6 significantly outperforming the market, thanks to its highly successful World Cup coverage. As expected, the adjusted EBITA of Groupe M6 decreased to EUR 54 million, mainly due to higher programming costs for the football World Cup and lower linear TV advertising revenue in the period January to May 2026. Our French family of free-to-air channels increased its average audience share in the commercial target group to 22%, which represents a record high for Groupe M6.
Now let's turn to Fremantle. The global video production market continues to be challenging. Fremantle's revenue came in at EUR 835 million in the first half of 2026, down 7.7% year-on-year, which was mainly expected and due to timing effects at Fremantle's drama and film businesses, while the entertainment and documentaries businesses were broadly stable in the first half of this year.
We expect this development to reverse in the second half of the year, resulting in slightly higher revenue for the full year 2026 for Fremantle, driven by the delivery of major productions such as "Baywatch" and "Kill Jackie" Just last week, Fremantle announced a major international distribution deal for "Baywatch," with Amazon Prime Video acquiring the reboot across key international markets as well as a full "Baywatch" catalog.
Adjusted EBITA increased to EUR 83 million, which corresponds to a margin of 9.9%, driven by continued cost control measures such as the further reduction of overhead costs as well as portfolio effects. Adjusted EBITA was EUR 60 million, which corresponds to a 7.2% margin, up significantly from 4.3% in the first half of 2025. With that, Fremantle is well on track to reach its 9% margin target for the full year 2026, as previously guided.
Moving on to the next slide, take a closer look at the main items below adjusted EBITA down to group profit on slide nine. Group profit from continuing operations rose from EUR 6 million- EUR 61 million in the first half of 2026, mainly due to the contribution from the acquisition of Sky Deutschland. Let's look at some of the other effects which adjusted EBITA and group profit in the first half of 2026. Significant special items increased to EUR -107 million, mainly due to cost reductions programs, which we already talked about in March.
In the first half of 2026, the group's tax expense was significantly lower at EUR 13 million, mainly due to the absence of one-time tax effects in the prior year. The normalized tax rate remained stable at 33%. Moving on to slide nine with a closer look at our cash flow. Total net cash from operating activities was EUR -25 million, resulting in operating free cash flow of EUR -71 million.
The lower cash conversion in the first half of 2026 was primarily driven by temporary buildup in net working capital and other one-time effects, partly related to timing of production businesses and major sports rights like the World Cup. For the full year, however, we expect a significantly improved cash conversion within our normal target range of around 90%. With this, I'll hand back to Clément for an update on our strategy progress and the outlook for 2026.
Thank you, Björn. The strategic framework of RTL Group is based on three priorities: core, growth, and alliances and partnerships. The core means investing in premium content, strengthening our family of channels, as well as cost and portfolio management. Growth areas are our streaming services, advertising technology, and addressable TV, as well as content production with Fremantle. Alliances and partnerships in advertising, content, and distribution. Moving on to slide 13, I know Björn already touched upon the record average audience share of our French family of free-to-air channels, but I want to insist there, because the FIFA World Cup was much more than just a major audience success.
It was a strategic milestone for Groupe M6. The tournament demonstrated the power of combining premium live content with our broadcasting, streaming, and digital platforms. It strengthened the M6 brand, accelerated the growth of M6+, and expanded our reach across all audiences and platform. In short, the World Cup created value well beyond the event itself and supports our long-term growth ambitions.
Now let's look at some of the key achievements. 60 million viewers followed the World Cup in France on M6 and M6+. Alone, the French versus Spain semifinal was followed by 20.3 million viewers, and that makes it the second highest audience ever recorded by M6 in its history. The streaming service, M6+, gained 4.2 million new registered users and recorded more than 100 million video views on M6+ during the tournament. The reach was extended significantly by 1.4 billion video views on the company's social media channel.
The streaming technology platform provided by Bedrock delivered reliable and stable performance supporting this exceptional increase in audience during traffic during the World Cup. Now let's turn to slide 14 and look at the impact of our cost reduction programs. As a reminder, resulting from the challenging environment in 2025, RTL Group accelerated its transformation by reallocating resources to streaming and comprehensive cost reduction across our core businesses. For the full year 2026, we expect cost savings of around EUR 75 million. RTL Deutschland launched an organizational realignment in January and reduced around 600 position in the first month of 2026.
This represents annualized savings of a mid-double digit million euro amount. Already in 2024, we announced that RTL+ in Germany will migrate to the Bedrock technology platform. The migration was successfully completed at the end of April and will generate significant cost savings going forward. Bedrock became also profitable in the first half of 2026. Groupe M6 announced a cost reduction program to be implemented by 2030, which focuses on production costs and AI-driven efficiency.
Since 2023, Fremantle has reduced FTEs by more than 600 while integrating its acquisitions and reducing overheads. The company's profit growth in the first half of 2026 reflect the progress achieved. Now let's turn to slide 15 and look at our growth business. In line with our strategic focus on streaming as a key growth driver, we closed the acquisition of Sky Deutschland DACH on June 1st. The transaction is a transformational move for RTL Group, as I mentioned earlier, bringing our full-year revenue to EUR 8 billion and paid subscriptions to around 12.4 million in DACH region, making us the clear number three in the German-speaking streaming market.
Alongside the strategic rationale of the acquisition, we will create significant shareholder value and will deliver annual synergies of EUR 250 million within the next three years. Let's take a closer look at the combined power of RTL Group and Sky Deutschland on the next slide, please. The combination creates a unique video proposition for entertainment, sports, and news across free TV, paid TV, and streaming. RTL and Sky complement each other in terms of business model, revenue streams, target groups, and content offers.
With more than EUR 2.5 billion of annual content spend, we unite market-leading reality TV, news, entertainment shows, and local drama with Sky's premium sports rights and global hit series and films. The combined portfolio connects with 100 million people in the DACH region through every daily touchpoint, from TV screen to mobile devices, radio, and print. Our reach extends far beyond video entertainment into trusted news, as well as radio and podcasts, creating unique cross-promotional power and monetization opportunities. Turning over to slide 17 and the development of our streaming business.
As you know, streaming is at the core of the transformation of RTL Group. Having invested significantly over the past years, our investment are now paying off. Our streaming services continue to grow strongly, making RTL Group one of the leading European media companies in streaming. Please note that the numbers shown on this slide are on a strict like-for-like basis and do not include Sky or WOW. This gives you a clear picture of the organic growth over the past years. Paid streaming subscription for RTL+ and M6+ have increased 21% year-on-year, and we continue to target 9 million subscriptions by the end of 2026.
Streaming revenue and viewing time also continue to grow dynamically. Streaming revenue grew 27% in the first half of 2026, and we continue to expect between EUR 600 million - EUR 650 million in revenue from our streaming services for the full year. Profitability of our streaming businesses improved by EUR 65 million year-on-year. Therefore, we now expect adjusted EBITA from streaming to increase to around EUR 100 million for 2026. Moving on to slide 18 and a closer look at our global content business, Fremantle. Two points are of particular importance looking at Fremantle. First, we are seeing significant margin progress.
Second, we remain optimistic that Fremantle will return to slight top-line growth for the full year 2026. In the second half of the year, major productions such as "Baywatch" and "Kill Jackie" will be important performance driver for Fremantle. Fremantle will deliver 12 episodes of the new series of "Baywatch" in second half. The new series will debut on Fox in the U.S. in January 2027, on Sky in the U.K. and Ireland next year, and on Amazon Prime Video across key markets such as Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Latin America, and India.
Fremantle will also deliver seven episodes of "Kill Jackie" in the third quarter of 2026. The series, starring Oscar-winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, will be available on AMC in the U.S. in autumn this year, on Amazon Prime Video in the U.K., Ireland, Netherlands, Turkey, Germany, and Canada, and on HBO Max in Spain, Portugal, France, and the Nordics. Beyond the timing of individual productions, the strength of Fremantle lies in its diversified model across genres, market, and customer.
Successful new shows strengthen our IP portfolio and create long-term monetization opportunities through distribution, also local adaptation, and also digital platforms. Fremantle strategy priority reflect this vision. It's A, ramping up Fremantle own IP development, B, rapid development of AI across the company value chain, but also focus on IP-driven acquisition of small and medium-size production company. Expansion, as I mentioned, in attractive geographies and genres. With Fremantle on track to reach its adjusted EBITA target margin of 9% this year, we will maintain focus on continued cost discipline and operating leverage.
Together, these priorities will strengthen Fremantle's resilience and drive sustainable profit growth. YouTube. Let me now share an update on another aspect of our strategy, which is monetizing our content libraries and intellectual property across third-party platforms. YouTube allows us to extend the reach of our content well beyond linear TV and streaming, while generating additional revenue from existing content assets. At the same time, it helps us engage complementary audiences, strengthen our brands, and create additional entry point into our streaming services.
We are seeing strong momentum across our YouTube activities. At Fremantle, the number of YouTube channel increased to 495, while total view grew from 6 billion last year to now 10 billion year-on-year, which is 55% of the watch time from connected TV. To give you an example, Fremantle has generated 230 million views from sports content in the first half of 2026, coming from actually zero compared to for the same period last year. We are also significantly expanding the YouTube footprint of our broadcasting businesses, including RTL Deutschland, Groupe M6, RTL Hungary, and RTL Luxembourg.
Overall, YouTube is becoming an increasingly relevant platform for audience engagement, content discovery, and also monetization across the group. Now moving on to our outlook for 2026 on slide 20. The geopolitical and macroeconomic environment remains volatile, and the impact on RTL Group's business continue to be hard to predict. Following the acquisition of Sky Deutschland, RTL Group updates its full-year revenue and adjusted EBITA outlook on the basis of, A, the full consolidation of Sky Deutschland for the period June to December 2026.
The Group linear TV advertising revenue decreasing by around 4% in the full year 2026. The Group streaming revenue growing by around 25%, and Fremantle revenue growing slightly. RTL Group now expects full-year revenue for 2026 to increase to around EUR 7.1 billion- EUR 7.2 billion. Adjusted EBITA for 2026 to increase to around EUR 725 million, with a variance of ± 3%, with significantly higher contribution from streaming compensating for lower contribution from the Group linear TV channel. This is absolutely in line with our previous guidance from March this year.
Adjusted EBITA from streaming for 2026 to increase to around EUR 100 million compared to the previous guidance range of around EUR 25 million- EUR 50 million. The overview represented here gives you a transparent bridge from the previous outlook, excluding Sky, to the new outlook, including Sky for the period June to December 2026. As explained by Björn, the significant adjusted EBITA contribution from Sky for the month of June is not indicative for the full year. With the new Bundesliga and German Cup season starting soon, Sky Deutschland's adjusted EBITA contribution for the period June to December will be plus/minus nil.
This shows, however, that Sky Deutschland has significantly improved its financial performance over the past year, and this provide a solid starting point for the EUR 250 million synergy target, which we fully confirm. Finally, RTL Group's dividend policy remains unchanged. The RTL Group plans to pay out at least 80% of its adjusted full-year net results. On slide 21. Let me close our presentation with a few remarks on our medium-term ambition. We confirm our medium-term adjusted EBITA target of EUR 1 billion, which represents a 50% increase from EUR 661 million in 2025.
What are the key drivers? First, after years of investment, as I said, the streaming businesses will generate around EUR 100 million in operating profit this year and then continuously increase their profitability. The acquisition of Sky Deutschland will generate annual synergies of EUR 250 million. In the medium term, Fremantle will return to organic growth of around 3% per annum and further expand its margin also with selected M&A. Finally, AI will provide significant benefits across our entire value chain. This brings us to the end of our presentation, and I guess we will now take your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question from the webinar may click the Q&A button on the left side of the screen and then click the Raise Your Hand button. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. 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 the Lower Your Hand button from the webinar or press star and two on your telephone. Anyone who has a question may queue up now. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Annick Maas from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for the presentation. I wanted to come back on the EUR 250 million synergies. Can you remind us on the phasing of this and can we already expect, or respectively, how many synergies can we expect this year to come through? Second one is on streaming profits much better this year than expected. Do we have already an idea of where you want streaming profits to land next year? Then finally, if you could give us just some comments on the TV advertising markets across your main markets over the summer, that would be great. Thank you.
Thank you for your questions, by the way. I will pick up on the first one. On the EUR 250 million synergy target. Just as a reminder, we just closed the acquisition of Sky Deutschland around 10 weeks ago. We fully confirm this target of the EUR 250 million synergy target for the next three years. Obviously, as you will understand, synergy will ramp up over time. Most of them will be realized in 2027 and 2028. Synergies are mainly coming from cost-driven categories, approximately 75% of them, while 25% are revenue synergies. The cost synergies are driven by optimization of content portfolio. That is the first one.
Second is overhead reduction. Third, which we have started doing, is the reduction of Sky's external media spend by leveraging the RTL universe. So that accounts for the cost-driven synergies. For the revenue one, we are looking at upselling some of the existing RTL+ subscribers to the Sky product, and this will take a bit of time. I think that's for the first one. Do you want to pick up on the second one, Björn?
Yeah, sure. Maybe just adding to the synergies for Sky this year. We are already expecting a first benefit this year, but given that it will take three years to fully realize the EUR 250 million synergies, the impact in the remainder of the year is limited. Think about a small, lower double-digit amount. But it will definitely help to achieve the around zero contribution for Sky. As you know, Sky has been a loss-making business in the past.
This is a good starting point for the next phase of development within RTL Deutschland. On streaming profits, I think the first main point here is that streaming, with the now expected EUR 100 million contribution, represents a meaningful share of our overall profitability, and that number is higher than previously expected.
The drivers for this development are threefold. First, higher subscribers. Second, higher revenue per subscriber. Lastly, higher revenue from our advertising tiers and higher distribution revenue. We generally expect these drivers to continue in 2027. The business will continue to scale strongly. You've seen this this year, but you've also seen it in the last two years, that revenue is increasing faster than the cost base.
You've seen in the H1 figures that our revenue from streaming is going up at 27%. Again, we'll give a full guidance on 2027 with the full-year results 2026. But as a first indication, I expect the revenue to continue to grow in a meaningful way, and I would expect that the contribution from streaming will continue to also grow stronger than the revenue. On the markets. On the development on the linear TV advertising markets.
As we have seen, the figures or the markets overall have remained challenging in the first half of 2026, and this is fully in line with what we have assumed. To note is the World Cup, and the impact on the advertising markets in general. In France, we saw a significant impact given the strong success that Clément explained in detail earlier in his presentation. Looking ahead a little bit, July in Germany is down, and the same is true for August.
In France, July is up significantly, or very significant, and that is because we have the second part of the World Cup in July. August is also expected to be down in France. Overall, as you know, when you look at Q3, July and August are, relatively speaking, smaller months in a normal year, and September is by far the most important month. It is still too early to fully call September, but first indications in Germany are better. In France, the market continues to be challenging, and we will be observing this closely as we move into Q4. We have reflected this in our outlook.
I would add maybe two things less related on the TV advertising market, but adjacent to the topic. First, we gain advertising share across all our markets, which is a very strong sign of our performance. Second, our digital advertising market is growing very rapidly. We have seen an 11% growth in the first half of the year, and it will continue.
Great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Julien Roch from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. On Sky Deutschland, first half revenues of EUR 977 million. How much growth versus the first half of 2025? Can we get EBITDA and EBITA rather than EUR 4 million in net income? That is three numbers. The second question is EUR 8 billion of pro forma revenue in 2025. So EUR 2 billion for Sky Deutschland in 2025. Can we get EBITDA and EBITA for Sky Deutschland in 2025? That is two numbers. Then, staying on Sky Deutschland, 12.4 million DACH subscription in the first half, not subscribers. RTL at 7.6 million, so Sky Deutschland 4.8 million. Is that correct? What was it at the end of 2025? So two numbers. That is seven numbers in total. Thank you.
Okay. The numbers that we are disclosing are adjusted EBITA. The contribution in the single months of June is EUR 61 million. As explained, this is seasonally affected by the timing of the sports events.
No, my question was for the first six months. You gave us pro forma EUR 977 million of revenue. How much was it last year? Is it up, down, flat? Then can we get EBITA for the whole six months?
Yeah. That was just a repeating of what we are disclosing. As I said, we are disclosing adjusted EBITA for the single month of June, and we are also disclosing the adjusted EBITA impact for the period June until December, which will be, as described, around zero. We will not provide any details on past performance of Sky while it was under previous ownership. Overall, I think the numbers are all very consistent and in line with what we present at the time when we announced the acquisition. At the time, we said it will be around EUR 2 billion of revenues.
We said that the business at the time of closing will be EBITA neutral. I can confirm these, and this is also reflected in the revenue adjustment and in the revenue expectation for the remainder of the year, which is around EUR 1 billion. Which speaks to the around EUR 2 billion on a kind of pro forma full year basis. That is one of the side benefits, not only of Sky, but also of streaming, that the ability to model and predict the businesses will improve, because less volatile than the advertising business. I can also confirm the 4.8 million.
These would be kind of the incremental subscribers from Sky, both for their pay TV product and for WOW streaming. Apologies, Julien. I know obviously you would like to have all kinds of numbers. Let us stick into what we are expecting for this year. We will, of course, further develop our disclosures in a transparent way. We are in the process of reworking our KPIs so that latest for the full year 2026, we provide additional revenue disclosures around our business. Thank you.
Okay. As you are not giving any numbers on past performance, maybe a follow-up to any questions on your answer on ad trends over the summer. You are saying Germany remain challenged down July and August, down what? Mid-single? High single? Thank you.
I would say high single digit, low double digit. Again, July and August-
Or-
Small months and July specifically impacted by the World Cup. You see the pattern in all countries. The broadcaster that have the World Cup, and we see this in France, are increasing significantly, whereas the others are kind of impacted negatively. That is what we are seeing also in the figures. I think the key point is, all of these trends are reflected in our outlook. For the full year, we expect a decline of around -4% across the group for our linear TV business. With that in mind, we are confirming the EUR 725 million adjusted EBITA.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Then the next question comes from Jérôme Bodin from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all. A few questions on my side. The first one, it is just on Germany. If you can give us a bit, some indication on how programming costs have evolved in H1 and for the rest of the year, so ex Sky Deutschland. That is my first question. Second one, just to get your view on possible partnership that you can sign for RTL+ in Germany in terms of distribution. M6 has signed Amazon in France. TF1 has signed Netflix in France and seems to be quite successful.
I would be curious to get your view on what you can do for RTL+ in Germany. Lastly, on Sky. Since the consolidation on the Sky product and on the commercial policy, do you plan to change anything? Is there anything obvious that you want to change in terms of pricing, in terms of go-to-market, in terms of positioning, that you have seen since the consolidation? Thank you very much.
I can cover the first question on the programming cost, and Clément will cover the partnerships and the Sky pricing, what we can share at this point. On programming cost, this also reflects our transformation of our business. We continue to invest on the non-linear side. Programming costs for RTL+ are slightly up, whereas on the linear side, programming costs have decreased slightly versus last year.
On the partnerships, look, as I said, this is core to our strategies. This is one of our key pillars is the partnerships that we're doing. This enables us to reach different audience, create new monetization. We do that with obviously streaming platforms, and streaming platforms that is clear not only with what you've mentioned for M6, but in Germany, we do have a very significant partnership with Deutsche Telekom, that really enabled us to boost our streaming presence for RTL+. As well with HBO Max, which we have created a bundle as well, similar to what has been layered in France.
That's for partnership. It's really important for us that enables us to expand our audience reach and new monetization opportunities, and we'll continue doing this as we've done in the past. On the Sky product, look, again, I will mention that it's 10 weeks in, so we will obviously let the team go into more detail on the commercial offering and the detail of the pricing as such. But what I can tell you is, and where we are very optimistic on, is that RTL and Sky have a highly complementary business model.
When you see the revenue streams, the content offer, and the target group, we see a lot of potential synergies between the different product, and we'll be able to optimize the value of the combined portfolio of content and customer across now free TV, but also paid TV and streaming. Look, we've done some tests already, and we've seen the power of that with some sports rights that drive TV audience share, the live TV viewing, advertising revenue, the streaming subscription inflows, the retention. Also, how we do cross-promotion of the brands. I think those are the first low-hanging fruit, let's put it this way, that we've already tested and we'll continue doing it and we'll obviously let you know and let customers know the different offering soon.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Nizla Naizer from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Great, thanks. I have two questions from my end. Clément, I think you referred to the word retention, and my question is actually on how the churn levels compare in Sky versus RTL+, and are you learning anything that you can apply from one business to another on how to keep these subscribers for longer, improve retention? Any color there would be great. My second question is, I guess coming into RTL, what are your views on what's working, and I guess a high level question, where would you like to make any changes, if at all? Some color on how you're thinking in your new role would be great. Thank you.
Sure. Thank you. Look, retention obviously is a key element for us. Sky has a high ARPU, high retention model, and obviously we learn a lot from it with our RTL+ business, so I think there will be a lot of cross-learning opportunities there. Retention is also driven by high quality content, and I think with the portfolio that we have, and I mentioned that we are spending EUR 2.5 billion of content, I think this will help us obviously retain our viewers and customer. Marketing is an important aspect of retention. Again, we have this unique, unmatchable power of cross-promotion across the different platforms in Germany.
All that will combine, will help us in the retention. I think that's a very fair question. It's not only acquisition, it's also retention, and I think we are in a very solid position. As for your second question, what's working? I think, look, today, we are talking about the half year results. I think those interim results show that our strategy is delivering tangible results. I think this is proof in point. I would like to highlight maybe a few things on what is working.
The shift from the linear TV to streaming is working. The numbers are showing it, with EUR 100 million of operating profit. Second, I think we will, with the close of Sky Deutschland, be able to focus and now deliver on the synergies that we are expecting to drive, will create shareholders value at a meaningful way. Look, also what is working, we shouldn't forget, is we are gaining TV audience share and advertising share in our core market.
I think this is also showcasing the power of TV and this unmatchable reach that we have in a fragmented audience environment. Also what is working is that we are, after a period of growth, after acquisition, we are now with Fremantle, very disciplined in the way we approach things. Our adjusted EBITA is showing it now for the first half of the year 2026. We are on track to reach this 9% of target of operating margin. So, I think in other words, what's working, I think the strategy is working. I think this half year results show it. We will continue to execute it with speed and discipline.
I think we will continue to invest in content, engaging our fans. Now we have this amazing opportunity to better use this content on different platforms. First, to reach a wider audience in a different way. Also, what is really exciting is that we will be also able to monetize this audience in different ways, not only advertising, but also subscription and distribution. This, I think, positions us very well.
Great. Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time, so I would like to turn the conference back over to Clément Schwebig for any closing remark.
Thank you very much to all of you to have joined us in this mid of August financial presentation. As I said initially, I am looking forward to engage with you in the future. I just would like, before we close, to thank Björn, who will be your last financial presentation at RTL Group. I know that you have done this for many years, and I would like to thank you, and maybe hand it over to you for a few words.
Thank you very much, Clément. Much appreciated. Personally, many thanks to all of you for the open and good collaboration over many years. I think it was extremely helpful. Many thanks for your questions. I think more broadly, and I think that is even more important, thank you for your interest in following RTL Group and for covering us. Thank you.
Excellent. Thank you, everyone.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your lines. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.