Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the RTL Group half-year results call. For today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star point one on your touchtone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to hand the conference over to Oliver Fahlbusch. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our half-year results call for analysts. The speakers for today's presentation are Thomas Rabe, the CEO of RTL Group, Elmar Heggen, our Deputy CEO and COO, and Björn Bauer, our CFO. The presentation for this call is available on our corporate website, rtlgroup.com, following the link included in our press release under Download. The agenda on slide 2 shows the areas our management team will cover today, after the presentation, Thomas, Elmar, and Björn are available to answer your questions. With this, I'll hand over to Thomas.
Many thanks, Oliver, good morning to all of you. Let me look at the most important developments of the past 6 months on slide 4. Despite numerous external challenges, we made good strategic and operational progress. Our growth business streaming progressed significantly, with more than 6 million paying subscribers to RTL+ in Germany and Hungary, Televisa in the Netherlands. We're investing through the cycle and maintained our investment in content streaming, tech, and data at the high level of the previous year. For example, through the acquisition or renewal of the UEFA Champions League or Europa League rights, or the international rollout of the success format, The Traitors. In our largest market, Germany, we achieved higher TV audience shares. RTL and VOX are now the number 1 and number 2 commercial TV channels in Germany, which is a clear testament to our program strength.
While we are pleased with our strategic and operational progress, challenging advertising markets are equally part of the story of this first half year. Although we are seeing first signs of market stabilization in Germany, in particular, we've adjusted our outlook for the full year 2023. We now expect an adjusted EBITDA of around EUR 950 million after streaming startup losses of around EUR 200 million. At the same time, I'd like to reiterate our midterm growth targets for streaming and Fremantle. I'll come back to this later in the strategy update. And with all of this, I hand over to Björn, who will take you through the group's financials.
Thank you, Thomas. Good morning, everyone. Let's start with the key figures on slide 6 before we dive a bit deeper into our quarterly development, income statement, and cash flow statement. On page 6, in the first half of 2023, RTL Group's revenue decreased 5.1% to EUR 3.1 billion, mainly due to significantly lower TV advertising revenue. Adjusted for portfolio changes and a constant exchange rate, group revenue was down 4.3% organically. Our half-year adjusted EBITDA decreased from EUR 501 million to EUR 250 million, mainly from significantly lower profit contributions from RTL Deutschland, which were driven by soft advertising markets. This development was broadly in line with our internal expectations. Already in March, we said that we expect a more backloaded full year 2023, with improvement in the second half of the year.
Streaming startup losses increased to EUR 87 million year on year, due to higher investments in RTL+ in Germany and Hungary. As a result, adjusted EBITDA before streaming startup losses came in at EUR 337 million. Group profit was down to EUR 132 million, mainly due to lower adjusted EBITDA and higher capital gains in the first half of 2022, driven by the disposals of RTL Belgium and RTL Croatia. Earnings per share came in at EUR 0.48 for the first half year. Moving on to slide 7. Here you see the development of RTL Group's total and TV advertising revenue on a quarterly basis. Overall, TV advertising revenue decreased by 13% in the first half of 2023. Adjusted for scope effects, TV advertising revenue was down by 10% across all portfolios.
In the first quarter, group revenue declined 9% on the back of an expected 13% decrease in TV advertising revenue. This was in line with the guidance we gave you in March of a 16%-20% decline for the first quarter. This development gradually improved from April to June. In the second quarter, revenue was down 2%, also due to significantly lower TV advertising revenue of -9%, but this decrease was largely compensated by higher revenue from Fremantle and RTL Group streaming services. I want to point out that the decline of our TV advertising revenue is successively improving. Especially in Germany, TV advertising revenue in June and July is already back to prior year levels. Moving on to slide 8. In looking at items, adjusted EBITDA down to group profit.
Significant special items amounted to EUR 78 million, mainly reflecting restructuring measures at RTL Deutschland and to a lower degree at Fremantle. RTL Group recorded capital gains of EUR 60 million in the first half of 2023, mainly due to the dilution of our stake in Global Savings Group and an equity investment held by Group entities. As you know, we sold our interest in SpotX to the U.S. asset company, Magnite, in April 2021, and received part of the consideration in shares. Magnite share price increased in the first half of 2023, leading to a remeasurement of the Magnite shares. This positive effect is reflected in the line, "A value measurement of investment and remeasurement of earn outs." The financial result was plus EUR 11 million, mostly driven by remeasurement of existing put call options and by higher interest rates.
Tax charge came in at EUR 57 million. The reported tax rate in the first half of 2023 was 30%, compared to 31% for the first half of 2022. Looking now at the next slide, the cash flow statement. Our operating free cash flow was minus EUR 33 million in the first half of 2023, reflecting the operating performance and significant investments to boost our growth businesses streaming and the more capital-intensive businesses at Fremantle. With the dividend payment for the financial year 2022 amounting to EUR 690 million, we reduced our current deposits with Bertelsmann and also drew from our revolving credit line facility. These effects are shown in the line transactions with shareholders and other equity holders.
To summarize, with negative operating free cash flow and dividend payment, cash used in the first half of 2023 was EUR 127 million. At the end of June, RTL Group had net debt of EUR 702 million. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio stands at 0.76 times. For the business review, I will now hand over to Elmar.
Thank you, Björn. Let's look at our most important businesses in greater detail. I will start with RTL Deutschland on slide 11. In the first half of 2023, our largest unit, RTL Deutschland, continued the dynamic growth of its streaming service, RTL+, obtaining subscribers up 31% year on year to about 4.5 million. We are in the process of launching our multimedia app, comprising video, music, podcasts, audiobooks, and magazine content in one single app. Our German family of channels is the clear market leader. RTL Deutschland reported a combined average audience share of 27.6% in the target group of viewers aged 14 to 59, extending the lead over our main commercial competitor, ProSiebenSat.1, to 5.8 percentage points.
Our main channel, RTL, remained the market leader in Germany in the target group with an average audience share of 9.8%. This made RTL the only major TV channel in Germany, with growing audience share in key target groups in the first half of 2023. For the first time, VOX has become the second largest commercial channel in Germany, both in terms of key commercial target group as well as total audience share. With this, RTL Deutschland has achieved a major strategic target. RTL and VOX are now the number one and number two commercial channels in Germany in the target group 14-59. In July, VOX has even overtaken ProSieben in the younger target group of viewers aged 14-49.
In terms of programming investments, we have renewed exclusive broadcasting and streaming rights for the UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Europa Conference League until the season 2026, 2027. Reorganization of our publishing business is well underway. Thomas will give you an update on that later. Looking now at the financials, RTL Deutschland in the first half of 2023. In the reporting period, the German net TV advertising market was estimated to be down between 13% and 40%, with RTL Deutschland performing slightly better than the market. Total revenue of RTL Deutschland was down 5.6% to EUR 1.17 billion, due to significantly lower TV and print advertising revenue. This was partly compensated by higher streaming revenue.
Adjusted EBITDA declined from EUR 121 million to EUR 16 million, due to lower TV advertising revenue and higher streaming startup losses. In addition, the adjusted EBITDA for the first half of 2022 included a positive effect of EUR 35 million from the reversal of provisions relating to the legal proceeding with RTLZWEI. Moving now to M6 on the next slide. The French net TV advertising market was down between 8.5%-9.5% compared to the first half of 2022. Total revenue of Groupe M6 was down 6% to EUR 622 million, mainly due to lower TV advertising revenue and scope effects. Accordingly, adjusted EBITDA decreased by 7.4% to EUR 138 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin remained high at 22%.
The French media authority, ARCOM, announced in April that M6 had been reallocated to digital terrestrial television channel 6 for the next 10 years. M6 has secured several attractive sports rights to boost audiences for its linear TV channels and for its streaming service, 6play, which includes live matches from the current Women's Football World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the Rugby World Cup this autumn in France, and starting this September, the NFL, including the Super Bowl. As reported last year, M6 acquired the rights to become the official free-to-air broadcaster for the finals of the UEFA Champions League in the years 2025-2027. These are all examples of our strategy to invest in premium content. Let's now turn to RTL Nederland on slide 13.
The Dutch LED TV advertising market was estimated to be down by 6.8% in the first half of 2023. Following a record year in 2022, RTL Nederland total revenue decreased by 5% to EUR 288 million in the first half of 2023, with higher streaming revenue partly compensating for lower TV advertising revenue. This resulted in a lower adjusted EBITDA of EUR 69 million, corresponding to a high adjusted EBITDA margin of 24%. Our streaming service, Videoland, grew its subscriber base by almost 18% compared to the end of June 2022, the service was close to break even during the reporting period. These developments show that we are making significant progress on our defined path to profitability.
The combined audience share of our Dutch family of channels remains at a high level of 34.3%, significantly ahead of public broadcasters and others. Turning now to our global content business, Fremantle, on slide 14. Our content business, Fremantle, increased revenue by 2.4%, exceeding the EUR 1 billion threshold for the first time in the first, in the first six months. Revenue growth was driven by scope effects from recent acquisitions. The business unit's revenue decreased slightly by 1.8% organically, mainly due to timing effects. Accordingly, Fremantle's adjusted EBITDA declined to EUR 36 million. Fremantle has continued to produce critically acclaimed content at the highest level of quality. Fremantle Productions have already won 60 awards in the first half of 2023 alone.
I will now hand you back to Thomas, who will take you through the strategy update before presenting the outlook.
Yeah, many thanks, Elmar and Björn. To slide 16, our strategic framework remains unchanged. It's based on three priorities: core, growth, and alliance and partnerships. Core means investing in premium content, strengthening our family of channels, as well as cost and portfolio management. Here we see great opportunities with artificial intelligence. Today, we already apply AI at scale, and advertising planning has started to support content creation. Growth in those areas, our streaming service, advertising technology, and addressable TV, as well as content production with Fremantle. Alliances and partnerships for national advertising sales consolidation, international advertising sales via RTL AdAlliance, as well as joint investments in advertising streaming technology solutions via Smartclip and Bedrock. Moving to slide 17. We remain convinced that market consolidation is necessary to compete with global tech platforms. Thus, we remain committed to scaling up our TV and streaming businesses.
There are, there are other ways to scale, not in one step as initially planned, but with a series of smaller steps. We are actively exploring several opportunities for advertising sales consolidation in our key territories. For example, we are currently in talks with the German TV channel RTLZWEI, in which we hold a minority shareholding, to take over advertising sales for RTLZWEI at the beginning of 2024. This is subject to review by the German Federal Cartel Office. Moving on to Slide 18, and looking at the publishing business of RTL Deutschland, which we are reorganizing to further strengthen our leading position and journalistic relevance. As clearly communicated earlier this year, we've focused our focus on the core brands of Stern, GEO, Capital, Brigitte, and Gala. They account for around 70% of our, RTL Deutschland's publishing revenue and circulation.
All other brands and line extensions are being sold or discontinued. The reorganization is progressing with the social plan, the redundancy package signed at the end of March 2023, and portfolio adjustments well advanced. The first disposals have already been announced and closed, and we aim to finalize the sales process over the summer. With the reorganization, we reduce cost by EUR 70 million per annum by 2025, especially in corporate functions, IT, and facility management. Staff will be reduced by approximately 700 FTEs. In addition, staff will be reduced in other RTL Deutschland business brands, 300 FTEs by 2025, bringing the total reduction to 1,000 FTEs. By 2025, we'll invest around EUR 80 million transformation of our publishing brands, primarily in paid content and digital services.
The combination of RTL Deutschland's TV streaming and publishing businesses make sense as it creates value in the form of synergies of around EUR 75 million per annum in areas such as concentration, advertising, sales, tech and data, and corporate functions. Let's move to slide 19, with more color on streaming. With more than 6 million paying subscribers at the end of the first half of 2023, our subscriber base grew by 34% year-over-year, mainly driven by RTL+ in Germany. Streaming revenue from RTL+ and Videoland grew by 17% to EUR 152 million. In line with our targets, we increased our content spend by 27% to EUR 158 million in the first half of 2023, translating into streaming side of losses of EUR 87 million.
Over the past months, major US studios and content rights holders have restarted to license films and shows to international broadcasters and streaming services, partly reversing their strategy to withhold such content exclusively for their own streaming services. This development improves our access to premium content and it opens interesting opportunities for content partnerships. We're already clearly established on RTL+ and Videoland as the leading national streaming services, which puts us in an excellent position for the necessary consolidation of the streaming market or markets in the next years. All in all, we are on track to reach our ambitious streaming targets. In Germany, we have significantly increased the monthly prices for our premium packages. These price increases have been implemented in phases since March 2023, without significant subscriber churn. They will increase the average revenue per user going forward.
By 2026, we plan to increase our annual content spend to around EUR 600 million. On this basis, we aim to grow the number of paying subscribers for RTL+ and Videoland to 10 million, increase our streaming revenue to EUR 1 billion, and to reach profitability by 2026. With both RTL+ and Videoland having successfully introduced hybrid business models consisting of various price packages. Lower priced, for free packages, are predominantly or fully financed by advertising. This approach offers us much more flexibility compared to a pure AVOD or SVOD approach. While our streaming business is growing strongly, we can increasingly reap the benefits of running, running two strong viewing platforms with our family of TV channels and our streaming services. Again, this brings important competitive advantages. Moving to slide 20.
As you can see, streaming and linear TV address complementary viewer groups. Let's look at the example of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, one of the most successful formats on our main channel, RTL. The show performs very strongly on streaming, reaching a much younger audience in the mid thirties. Generally speaking, at RTL, TV and streaming go hand in hand. We benefit from using one brand, the established brand RTL, and from using successful TV formats to drive streaming inflows and usage. We source and share content between TV and streaming, which improves our access to content and positions us as a partner of choice for major studios and content rights holders. We reduce our marketing spends or optimize our marketing spends by cross-promotion and using TV advertising for our streaming services.
Finally, our streaming services benefit from synergies across the group and streaming technology in particular, and beyond video via advertising. Moving on to our global content business, Fremantle, on slide 21. In the last years, Fremantle has become an even stronger, more creative, more diverse global content powerhouse. Both in terms of geographic footprint and output across entertainment, drama and film, and documentaries. Working with world-class storytellers and partnering with international directors and actors such as Angelina Jolie, Edward Berger, Salma, Salma Hayek Pinault, and Richard Brown, is key to the success of Fremantle. Fremantle has written an impressive growth story by expanding its scripted business. By investing in the documentary business, Fremantle aims to replicate success, to become one of the leading producers of high-end documentaries.
The company has already grown documentary output from 31 in 2021 to 80 in 2023, with 80 labels in 12 territories, telling local and global stories. This context, we confirm the growth target for Fremantle, to reach full year revenue of EUR 3 billion by 2025, despite increasing interest rates. To achieve this goal, we'll continue to invest in Fremantle, both organically and via acquisitions in all territories and across all content pillars. Let me finish by taking you through the group's outlook statement. We are on slide 22. The geographical and the macroeconomic environment remains volatile, and the impact on RTL Group's businesses continues to be hard to predict. We are seeing first signs of market stabilization in Germany in particular, we've adjusted our outlook for the full year 2023.
RTL now expects full year revenue of around EUR 7 billion. We expect our adjusted EBITDA to be around EUR 950 million, subject to stable, slightly growing TV advertising markets in the second half of 2023. We expect streaming startup losses of around EUR 200 million for the full year, and consequently, an adjusted EBITDA before streaming startup losses of around EUR 1.15 billion. RTL Group's dividend policy will remain unchanged. We plan to pay out at least 80% of the adjusted full year net results. This brings us to the end of the presentation. Thanks for your attention, 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, may press star, followed by 1 on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star, followed by 2. Anyone who has a question, may press star and 1 at this time. We have the first question from Annick Maas with Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Good morning. My first question is on the ad trends. I think you said June and July in Germany were flat year-on-year. Do you have a first indication on September and also the other markets? My second question is on Fremantle, if you could give us an idea of where you think organic revenue growth margin also is going to be full year? In that regard, can you maybe comment on how the actors strike in the U.S. is impacting you? I guess there's an argument to say that companies like yours, which is a bit, which are a bit more exposed to non-fiction content, benefit at the moment, because the streamers that are under pressure could impact on that content. Do you see that? The last question just is on the streaming losses.
Do you have already an idea where streaming losses may be next year? Thank you.
All right. It starts with the, with the ad markets. As Björn said, in Germany, our advertising revenues were flat in June and slightly down in July. We don't have a firm indication yet for September, nor for the full year. What we have are general macroeconomic trends. What we have are indications from agencies and advertising customers, but we also see increasing advertising bookings, and for some of our large customers, increased commitments for the fourth quarter in particular. That leads us to conclude that the second half of the year could be up, or advertising revenue could be in the tune of 0%-2% up versus 2022. That would also apply to the German market.
What we're currently seeing for the German market is a plus of approximately 1% in the second half of the year, and that would mean that the full year would be broadly at -4% to -5%. That is more prudent than what you heard from ProSieben, so we hope that ProSieben is right, and we are wrong. Would we apply the market expectation of ProSieben, we would not have had to adjust our outlook, right? We believe that our assumption is not only more prudent, but also closer to reality. I'd like to note that we're gaining market share in the German market. Fremantle this year will be broadly flat on revenue overall.
The margin, Björn, do you have a margin indication which we can share for, for this year?
Yeah. Similar to last year.
Similar to last year, absolutely. On the US strikes, writers and actors, your assessment is correct. Non-scripted is less affected than scripted, and European scripted is less affected than US scripted. Our assessment is that our scripted business in the US this year will not be impacted by the strike. It could be impacted next year with slippages. Our European scripted business could potentially benefit, but that would depend on how long the strike lasts. Our non-scripted business could benefit. That's, that's very clear. We're not yet seeing, I think it's fair to say we're not yet seeing significant impacts, neither positive nor negative. Streaming startup losses, we're looking into this. We expect streaming startup loss losses next year, but that's a really very, very first indication. Should be slightly lower than this year, but not significantly.
As we continue to invest significantly in content, in the tech platform and in, in marketing, our strategy is very clearly to continue to grow the, the top line significantly. We want to get to the 10 million subscriber mark as soon as we can, because we believe that will, that this would put us in a very, very strong strategic position in the necessary consolidation of the streaming market. If I wave example, the 27 streaming services in Germany alone, I think it's pretty clear that not even half of these services will survive. We see ourselves as a consolidator, not necessarily of the streaming services, but the potential of the content that is on these streaming services. Quite frankly, we've seen quite a bit of movement in the market already, with partners approaching us to discuss partnerships.
That is on the basis that we are the clear number one, local number one in the German market, and the clear number one in the Dutch market. We therefore think it makes strategic sense, despite some headwinds, to significantly invest in the business. Björn, maybe on other markets, I mean, France and the Netherlands in particular, on advertising.
Yeah. In, in France, we expect the Q3 to be the to be up, Q4 around stable, and then kind of similar to Germany, slightly up for the, for the, for the second half. In the Netherlands, we are seeing a, a slight decline. We're seeing a decline in the second half, and that is mostly driven by the end of the gambling on, on TV.
Thank you very much.
Next question is from the line of Julien Roques with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir, good morning, everybody. My first question is on programmatic, why it deal with The Trade Desk, which will take 20% of your heart and revenue, rather than do it direct and developing your own technology? I mean ITV as, as planned is going direct. That's my first question. The second one is on, on Germany. You said you were getting share, but how much, and what do you think will be the impact of, say, this year and next of having RTL number one and number two in terms of market share gains? ProSieben was down 10.6% in the first half in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. How much will you be down on all the net takes in the first half?
That's my second question on market share. The third one is do we get the total consumption for your program in Germany? Last year, in the first half, it was 10.6 billion hours, with 391 million being on linear. Could we get the same number for the first half of 2023? Thank you.
Thank you. Björn, on consumption first.
Yeah. The minute-... From the first half of 2023, we had 10.276 billion minutes, of that, 404 million nonlinear, and 9.872 as regards to the linear consumption.
Yeah. On for last year, number 1 and number 2 commercial channels. I mean, as we said before, you know, we are widening the audience gaps, and vis-a-vis ProSieben, we're now 5.8 percentage points in the commercial target groups. That has continuously increased in the last years. In terms of advertising, our view on the first half is that we've gained advertising market share in Germany. I'm not talking about Switzerland, and I'm not talking about Austria. Yeah, you want to add something?
Yeah. As you, you, you referenced the, the ProSieben TV core advertising development in the first half. That was down minus 13%, and we were down minus 12% in Germany.
Yeah.
Slightly gaining share.
Concerning, concerning Trade Desk, you're right. We're, we're using or working with Trade Desk for international bookings to rest of the TV, not for national bookings. National bookings, we're using our own technology. Therefore, TV takes these in-house. This has been our strategy for many years, as you know. We are, I'd say, among very few European broadcasters to have our own advertising technology with all key components, in which we invested significantly in the last years, which we use or through all the other RTL groups, which we are also licensing to third, to third parties. That's our philosophy. It's in line with the ITV philosophy.
Okay. just on that, so you're using a Bedrock for programmatic as a tool of the whole RTL Group. what, what would be the split, international, international booking, national booking?
This I don't have this. I would have to come back to you, but international bookings are fairly, fairly limited. We're using the smartclip technology and the Yospace technology on the advertising side, Bedrock with our streaming technology, which has been developed by agencies.
Okay. Thank you.
Yep. Welcome.
The next question is from one of Thomas Singlehurst from Citigroup. Please, go ahead.
Yeah, Morning, it's Thomas Singlehurst from Citi. Thanks for taking the question. Two questions, actually. One, I just really wanted to double-check why the full-year guidance is coming down to the extent that it is. Is it just because of a slightly less optimistic outlook for advertising in the second half? You know, what are the other factors? That'd be great if you can just maybe clarify what's driving the reduction on the revenue, given the first half looked okay. Second question is on streaming. I mean, obviously elsewhere, I'm specifically talking about U.K., some companies see troubles, your performance in streaming is all the more impressive than that.
I'm just interested in, like, what you think is driving the differential, and also whether when you talk about consolidation, you know, potentially picking up sort of premium sports-based streaming might be something that might be interesting if there's a shakeout in that space. Thank you.
No, thank you. Well, listen, the guidance and the revised guidance really is our advertising market expectations. You're right, you know, first half came in broadly in line with our external expectations and the assumed phasing of our performance in 2023. It was not a surprise that the advertising markets were weaker than we thought. In Germany, the advertising market was significantly weaker. We compensated part of this by cost management.
We quite simply don't see, you know, looking at, at our respective businesses, the half year results, the full year, the run rate, the cost base, the ad markets, the performances prior year, that we can come out at significantly more than EUR 950 million on the basis of advertising markets being at 0%-2% in the second half of the year. That said, you know, a few weeks ago, I probably had said, you know, I'd be more optimistic for the second half of the year, what we've seen since then is a third quarter, which is, which is not as good as we, as we thought, as we said before. June, flat, I mean, we were more or less zero, gaining market share. July, I believe, in Germany, down -3% or something.
I think, again, gaining market share, always down by approximately -10, which is a real disappointment. Now in September, it's a very small month, clearly, we would have liked to continue the trend of June and July. We don't have much visibility on September yet, September is 50% of advertising in the third quarter. To be honest, we prefer to be prudent. Looking at things differently, I mean, EUR 950 million EBITA for the full year, means EUR 700 million in the second half of the year. That would mean that we would have to repeat the EBITA performance of 2017, in a market which is down significantly. Just context, right? The German television market in the first half of the year, 2023, is 25% below 2019.
25%. It's by far the weakest of the large advertising markets in Europe. Looking at it positively, you could say this is the market with the highest potential, you know, for recovery. Right now, we don't see significant or strong signals for recovery, so we prefer to be prudent. As I said, if the markets were up 4% in the second half of the year, then our EBITA would come out at within the range which we originally provided in March. We prefer to be prudent, I think, as and realistic as we have been, and therefore, the slight revision of our EBITDA outlook.
On, on streaming, I think the reason-- I mean, I think it's impossible to compare us with Viaplay, I mean, for all the reasons I just mentioned. I mean, we are, I mean, and this has been our strategy from the beginning, we focus our streaming businesses on a, you know, on the markets in which we are strong in TV, where we have strong brands, where we have access to content, where we can source content jointly, as I said before, where we can, where we can, work with, with, with, with partners, where we have strong advertising sales. I'd say we're really sticking to our, to our knitting. We're running TV and streaming hand in hand. I would never, never launch a streaming service in a country where we don't have a TV footprint. I, I wouldn't do that.
I think it would be far too risky. Our stream strategy is based on a local approach, country-by-country cooperation where it makes sense. As I said, running TV and streaming hand in hand, and therefore benefiting from our strengths in TV and bringing that step-by-step to our streaming service. The other big element in Germany, in particular, is our partnership with Deutsche Telekom and the bundling of our streaming service with Magenta, with MagentaTV. Looking at the 4.5 million subscribers in Germany, approximately 60% come via the Deutsche Telekom partnership, which is mutually beneficial. That's, that's the way we look at the market. Sports rights, highly attractive, I mean, no doubt, both in TV and in streaming.
In TV in particular, they're one of the biggest drivers of audience and TV usage, and increasingly so, exactly as in the U.S., with the, with the networks. We have increased our, our investment in, in sports rights, in, in football, in particular, in Germany and in Hungary. We start broadcasting and streaming the NFL in Germany, starting in September, which we believe will be a huge success. We'll report back on this. It's also fair to say that sports rights come at huge prices because the competition is fierce, because of the attractive characteristics of the rights which I just shared with you.
It's a very, very competitive market, and in Germany in particular, unfortunately, we are very often outbid by the public service broadcasters and sports rights, who use, you know, their huge budgets, you know, to the tune of almost EUR 10 billion, which is almost secure because it's based on on on households payment. They use to, to, to outbid us on, on sports rights, which we believe is problematic, problematic from a competition point of view, but it is the reality.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Nizla Naizer with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Great. I've got two questions on that. The first one, the first one actually across the multimedia app. Previously, you mentioned that, you know, technology-wise, it is a bit challenging to bring all of these different platforms together on one sort of single app. How has that progress, has that been solved now? Can you give a bit of color on the timeline and what you expect from the multimedia app? The second question is on the address out of H2. Are you seeing conversations with certain sectors being more promising than others? Are certain sectors more weak than anticipated going into H2? Can you give some color as to how that's looking in terms of sector breakdown? The last is on the address versus effort strategy.
I mean, what we're hearing, I mean, here in the UK, for example, is that advertisers would love to get their hands on sort of favored content that isn't advertised, because it's high-quality video, sound on kind of advertising. Is that what you're seeing in terms of the conversations you're having in Germany? Would that change how you view address versus effort in your own RTL+ kind of approach? Any color there would be great. Thank you.
Very well. Well, on the, on the MTA, the good news is that we have solved the technical challenges. We are launching the MTA as we speak. The web offer has already been launched last week. We're launching the mobile offer on iOS and Android this week. We'll launch the big screen later, later this year. The multimedia app issues have been a real challenge. We believe it provides great experience to our customers. We'll launch a significant marketing campaign later this year. Frankly, I have high, high hopes concerning consumer interest and pricing. Because I mean, it's a multimedia experience. The objective is to personalize that media experience.
The personalization will, of course, improve as more data becomes available on the consumption patterns of the users. The experience, as I said, within time and instead become more personal. On AVOD and SVOD, I mean, as I said, our approach from the beginning in Germany and also the Netherlands, has been hybrid. Combining, if you wish, the best of SVOD and AVOD. It's fair to say that in both countries, our current assumption is that the primary revenue source will be S, i.e. subscription, not advertising. To be honest, who knows? We'll see, you know, what the market demands. We'll see what Netflix and others do with their hybrid offers.
I think the initial experience was not great, but I think they're picking up. We're going to watch this very, very closely. At the end of the day, what I'm interested in is maximizing revenue per subscriber, and whether revenue comes from the subscription or advertising, frankly, doesn't matter. It's going to be a combination for many of our customers. As I said, you know, we are, we are, we, we, both elements are included in the packages which we offer to the, to the market. The primary revenue source right now is subscription, but so we see significant opportunities for advertising. I confirm what you just said, there's huge demand out there, both for addressable but also for connected TV advertising inventory. It'd be easy to sell that.
We'll have to see, you know, what it means for, for revenue per subscriber and the trajectory and profitability, cost profitability for the business. It's something which is very much on our agenda. Sectors? Yeah, Jan.
Yeah, on sectors, first on, I'd say, what have we seen in the first half across our footprint, the three main sectors that stand out as they kind of increased their spending was tourism, cleaning, and also automotive, which has been a little bit of a laggard in the last few years. Down was prior years, services, food and retail. With regards to the second half, I, I'd say it's a bit speculative, what sectors will perform better or worse. As Thomas Rabe said earlier, we are seeing first signs in terms of bookings, but also conversations with agencies and large clients point towards a stronger Q4.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press Star and One on your telephone. So far, there are no further questions. Back to Oliver and Thomas for closing comments.
Yeah, thank you very much for your interest in our very good, in our half year results. We are available throughout the day in case you have further questions. Apart from that, we wish you all a good day and a good summer. Thank you very much.
Thank you, and speak soon.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect. Thank you very much for joining and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.