M6 to develop new streaming platform with Bedrock

NEUILLY SUR SEINE, France — M6 Metropole Television has released consolidated results to 31 December 2023.

Television

In 2023, individual viewing time stood at 3 hours 12 minutes5 across the public as a whole. Despite a slight decline compared to 2022 (down 3.5%), television remained the most popular format as it reaches 75% of people daily (stable in relation to 2022).

Over 2023 as a whole, M6 Group’s free-to-air channels (M6, W9, 6ter and Gulli), achieved the highest year-on-year growth on the key commercial target of 25-49 year olds with a 20.5% audience share (up 0.2 percentage point).

The M6 channel maintained its ranking as the second biggest national channel amongst 25-49 year olds with a 12.9% audience share (down 0.1 point). Its longstanding entertainment and news programmes performed very well again this year – L’Amour est dans le Pré (29% audience share amongst 25-49 year olds), Capital and Zone Interdite (19%) – while new brands such as The Traitors (33%) consolidated their success. In addition, 2023 was full of sporting events with, in particular, the broadcast of the Women’s Football World Cup and the Rugby World Cup.

On DTT, W9 was ranked the second most popular DTT channel amongst 25-49 year olds while the channels 6ter and Gulli set new records – 6ter achieved a record year in primetime with viewers aged 25-49 and Gulli had its best ever year on the commercial target with viewers under 50.

The 6play platform broke records in 2023 and confirmed its popularity amongst young people, with a third of 6play users under 35 years old, thus making it the youngest platform on the market. In addition, it is also the leader in terms of viewing time per user amongst the under 35s, who spend 53 minutes on 6play per day6. As such, the on-demand Video activity (streaming) accounts for 518.2 million hours viewed, representing 5.5% of total hours consumed on the Group’s networks.

TV advertising revenue totalled €905.0 million over the full year, a decline of 2.2% compared with 2022. The economic environment, marked by inflation, impacted advertisers’ investments in commercials. Streaming revenue8 accounted for 7.1% of the TV division’s total revenue for the year to 31 December 2023.

TV EBITA stood at €235.2 million, down €29.8 million, impacted by the decline in revenue and the rise in technical and commercial costs of VOD. An operating margin of 22.5% was achieved.

Outlook

While continuing to strengthen linear programming, the Group plans to ramp up the development of its streaming business by launching a new platform to realise its vision. This platform will feature a free range of powerful content, accessible from all screens, and offering an ever more innovative experience, driven by the expertise of its subsidiary Bedrock. Moreover, the platform will strengthen the Group’s value proposition for advertisers.

This ambition will leverage additional investments in content, technology, distribution and marketing between 2024 and 2028. Thus, the Group will invest up to € 100 million in its streaming operational expenses with the aim to double the Group’s streaming revenues as well as the number of hours viewed on the platform by 2028. The break-even is expected in 2027.

In addition, 2024 will also be marked by the broadcast of Euro 2024 for which, as official broadcaster, the Group will show exclusively, free-to-air and live, half of the top 25 matches including the final, a semi-final and two quarter finals (including France’s match if they qualify).