M6 hit by falling ad revenues

French broadcaster M6 Group saw its revenues drop in the third quarter, pushed down by a decline in advertising that the company said reflected the uncertain economic environment.

The broadcaster posted revenues of €290.1 million for the quarter, down 5.8% year-on-year, with advertiinsg revenues falling by 8.2% to €219.8 million.

M6’s non-advertising revenues grew by 2.7% to €70.3 million. However, while ad revenue is now above its 2019 level, non-ad sales were still below the pre-pandemic level.

EBITA totalled €57.2 million, down from €58.7 million , with a decline in revenue being offset by savings in TV programming and radio costs and the contribution of real estate subsidiary Stéphane Plaza Immobilier.

Revenue from the Production and Audiovisual Rights division was €15.8 million in the third quarter of 2022, a year-on-year decline of 30.3% due to a less favourable cinema release schedule.

The group’s revenues for the nine months to September were stable at €954.2 million, with non-advertising revenues up by 10.8% and advertising sales down by 2.4%. EBITA was up 5.5% t €222.7 million.

Over the third quarter, average daily Individual Viewing Time stood at 3 hours 4 minutes amongst the viewing public as a whole, down 15 minutes (7%) year-on-year but stable in relation to the third quarter of 2019 (up one minute or 1%), the baseline year.

M6 Group is continuing to develop its non-linear services and recently initiated the hybridisation of its free streaming platform 6play with the launch of a pay option, 6play Max.