European broadcaster RTL Group saw 73.3 percent growth in the number of paid subscribers signed up to its streaming platforms RTL+ and Videoland last year, the company reported in its full year financial results this morning. With over 3.8 million paid subscribers across its streaming services, RTL Group CEO Thomas Rabe said the company has made strong progress on its streaming strategy – though there’s still a way for the business to go to reach its lofty targets for 2026.
Streaming is a central pillar of RTL’s growth strategy, and the company is investing heavily in the area. During its last earnings report, the company upped its streaming revenues target for 2022 from €500 million to €1 billion, signalling its ambition. RTL hopes to have reached 10 million paying subscribers by this point.
The latest results, while positive, show there’s still a way to go on both these fronts. Total subscriber count grew by over 1.6 million last year – and RTL will need to keep up similar growth levels for the next five years if it’s to reach its target of 10 million. Streaming revenues meanwhile reached €223 million in 2021, up €55 million year-on-year. This will need to accelerate substantially for RTL to hit its ambitious €1 billion target.
Big investment across all types of content
To get there, RTL plans to ramp up its content spend significantly, and to continue investing across a wide range of content while also targeting specific genres.
Annual content spend for its streaming services reached €209 million last year, and RTL plans to triple this by 2026. The company’s announcement that it made record profits of €1.6 billion in 2021 signal that there’ll be cash available to finance this, though RTL also hopes for its overall streaming business to be profitable by 2021.
While €600 million per year is a significant sum, it’s still comfortably short of the annual content spend of the international SVOD giants, meaning RTL will have to be smart about where it spends this money.
One differentiator for RTL’s services is the range of content available. RTL+ offers on-demand TV shows and films, but also live channels, podcasts, audiobooks, music, and magazines through a mix of partnerships and acquisitions.
For its streaming originals, RTL says it will focus on high-end scripted dramas (a marked divergence from Germany broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1’s strategy with Joyn). RTL says that high-end dramas have particularly high long-term value as part of an on-demand library, and can generate revenue and profits “for between five and twenty years”.
And to monetise the users which this content draws in, RTL says it will increasingly rely on hybrid subscription models, offering a variety of different price points. “The various premium price packages include, for example, several parallel streams on various devices, the live signal of RTL TV channels in HD quality and premium content bundles including the programmes of the Group’s linear TV channels in the respective countries, plus premium content either exclusively produced or licensed from third parties,” the company said in its earning report.
Core growth continues
While RTL has high hopes for its streaming business, the broadcaster saw continued positive results for its traditional TV business which is still its biggest revenue generator. RTL saw four percent growth in TV ad revenues above pre-pandemic levels in 2021, or 16 percent growth compared with 2020.
This drove full year total revenues to €6.6 billion for RTL, up 10.3 percent year-on-year, and representing 4.3 percent organic growth compared with 2019.
