PPF Group's television business generated higher profits in 2022 than in the previous year, according to financial results.
The net profit of the CME Media Enterprises TV group, which operates in six Central and Eastern European countries and includes the domestic TV Nova, increased to EUR 136 million (approx. CZK 3.3 billion) in 2022, up 13% compared to 2021. The group's total revenue rose 14% year-on-year to EUR 777 million (approx. CZK 18.7 billion). CME is building on its traditional business model of advertising revenue and distribution revenue. The group expanded last June with the acquisition of RTL Croatia from RTL Group Central & Eastern Europe.
CME said it was focusing on investing in original content in 2022 and continuing its digital transformation to respond to the global consumer shift away from primary viewing of linear TV to subscription video-on-demand (SVOD). "In Europe, as elsewhere, SVOD is growing at an unprecedented rate," CME reasoned. It has therefore continued to expand its Voyo online service, which at the end of 2022 recorded 450,000 subscribers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (exceeding 0.5 million at the start of 2023, ed.), and the total number of Voyo subscribers in all CME markets stood at 700,000 at the end of last year.
Sports channels are becoming an important part of live TV (linear TV) for CME. In 2022, CME acquired part of the rights to broadcast the football World Cup in Qatar (broadcast mainly on Nova Action), as well as to broadcast some UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League matches in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, among others. It has also invested in the construction of new sports studios, considering live sports broadcasts as a "catalyst for further growth".
Part of the PPF Group since 2020, CME includes 43 TV channels and the Voyo streaming service in six countries (Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia), with an estimated reach of 49 million viewers. In 2023, PPF also invested in the purchase of a stake in the German TV group ProSiebenSat. 1 Media (13.1%).
Source: mediaguru.cz
