Like all other Belgian media groups, RTL Belgium – known from the commercial channel RTL-TVI – suffered heavily from the advertising trap in the pandemic year.
The tenor among media groups after the round of annual results is now clear: companies and advertisers kept their finger on the purse, especially in the first lockdown. That while readers and viewers did arrive en masse. This was also the case with RTL Belgium, the company above the leading French-speaking commercial channel RTL-TVI. The affiliate of media group
RTL had a very weak year.
RTL Belgium’s turnover declined by 14.1 percent, from 185 to 159 million euros. Adjusted gross operating profit also fell, under pressure from lower TV and radio advertising revenues, from EUR 36 million to EUR 16 million. RTL Belgium said it was strong in terms of market share, although it only pushes the figures forward in the target group of 18 to 54-year-olds that are interesting for commercial media companies. In the industry, those age categories are known as people who decide within a family about the purchase of a product.
Full daughter
All TV channels of RTL Belgium achieved a combined market share of 36.1 percent with that group, compared to 34.5 percent in 2019. The flagship – RTL-TVI – remains the market leader and further increased its market share, from 25.3 to 27 , 1 percent. The channel itself attributes this partly to the interest of the public in ‘reliable information about the corona crisis’. The evening news program RTL Info 19h achieved an average reach in the commercial target group of 43.3 percent, compared to 39.2 percent a year earlier.
It is the first time that RTL Belgium appears in the annual report of RTL as a wholly owned subsidiary. On December 1, RTL, itself owned by the German Bertelsmann, announced that it would buy out co-shareholders in full. In the television branch, these were the publishers Rossel (Le Soir), IPM (La Libre), Mediahuis (De Standaard, Het Nieuwsblad) and the holding Echos (Mediafin / Grenz Echo) – united in the holding Audiopresse – and in the radio branch. Rossel and Lemaire Electronics. The transaction was completed just before the end of the year – on December 28th.