(L-R) Stefano Sala, CEO, MFE Advertising; Matteo Cardani, CMO, MFE Advertising; Michele Giraudo, CRO, MFE Advertising
When MFE-MediaForEurope took full control of German broadcaster ProSieben just over one year ago, the media holding company positioned the takeover as a play for scale in the face of competition from US streaming giants. By enabling advertisers to more easily run ad campaigns across European markets, the Berlusconi-owned TV business aims to reclaim some of the ad budgets currently swallowed up by tech platforms with international reach.
But last week’s earnings update suggested the merger was yet to have a material impact on MFE’s ads business, with total revenues across the group down by 6.1 percent year-on-year during H1 2026. Now the firm is aiming to bolster its ad offering, in order to provide the cross-border credentials promised by the group’s European expansion.
This morning, MFE Advertising, the company’s international ad sales house, announced the launch of ALL21 Total Video Europe, a cross-country advertising solution. The offering is designed to deliver simultaneous reach across linear TV and premium digital video environments in Italy, Spain and Germany, through a single campaign.
The ALL21 format creates a unique burst of mass simultaneous reach for a specific spot, by playing the same ad (or ads) during a 60 second break synchronised across channels (at 21:00, hence the name). Mediaset introduced the format in Italy back in 2013, and brought the concept to Mediaset España under the SuperSpot brand a few years later. More recently, these offerings have been expanded to include the Mediaset Infinity streaming platform, and the format was launched in Germany following MFE’s acquisition of ProSieben.
ALL21 Total Video Europe extends the core concept further, synchronising a 60-second ad break across linear and digital channels in all three markets, covering 24 linear channels in total. MFE says this will provide a combined reach of more than 14 million individuals.
Stefano Sala, CEO of MFE Advertising, said the solution is designed to deliver scale, flexibility, and value. “ALL21 Total Video is a tangible step towards the creation of a European platform, providing advertisers with simple and integrated access to premium audiences across MFE’s key markets,” he said. “At a time when attention is increasingly fragmented, high-quality content, trusted media environments and transparent activation processes are essential to building trust and delivering strong, sustainable results.”
Playing to TV’s strengths
As last week’s earnings showed, MFE’s consolidation strategy is already delivering cost efficiencies. But the ultimate aim is to return revenues to stable and consistent growth. MFE believes that aggregating reach across markets will provide a more effective way to compete with the tech giants.
As Sala mentioned, this is just a step on that path. It’s an interesting place to start. One of TV’s unique selling points has always been its ability to deliver mass simultaneous reach, showing the same ad to one unified audience at the same time. That ability has been eroded as linear viewing has decreased and TV audiences have fragmented across platforms. Only sports broadcasts have really managed to maintain and grow their unified live viewership.
Aggregating reach across channels and markets revives that capability. For context, 14 million was the average audience for England’s group stage game against DR Congo at this year’s World Cup. ALL21 Total Video is obviously a different proposition, since campaigns will run across markets, alongside a variety of shows. Nonetheless, it offers impressive simultaneous reach for international advertisers.
And it’s an offering to which the tech giants don’t generally have a direct equivalent. While the social platforms have massive audiences, their proposition is largely based around hyper-targeting. Mass simultaneous reach remains the domain of broadcast TV. So with this product, MFE isn’t trying to beat the tech giants at their own game, but rather to build on TV’s traditional strengths and provide something that is hard to come by on social channels.
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