Mediaset First-Half Profit Rises 34% on Increased Advertising
July 29, 2010, 12:51 PM EDTBy Chiara Remondini
July 29 (Bloomberg) -- Mediaset SpA, the broadcaster of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said first-half profit rose 34 percent on higher advertising sales in Italy and Spain.
Net income advanced to 241.6 million euros ($316 million) from 180.8 million euros a year earlier, the company said in a stock-exchange statement today. Net revenue gained 17 percent to 2.28 billion euros. Analysts had estimated net income of 229 million euros on sales of 2.26 billion euros, according to Bloomberg estimates.
“During the first six months of the year, in a still uncertain economic climate, the first signals of a recovery in the advertising market began to be seen,” Mediaset said in the press release.
Mediaset runs free-to-air and pay-TV channels that compete with the network of state-owned RAI SpA and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.-run satellite broadcaster Sky Italia SpA. Mediaset is expanding in digital-terrestrial broadcasting, where it has a pay offering, called Premium, as well as free channels.
Mediaset also controls Gestevision Telecinco SA, Spain’s largest commercial TV station. Yesterday, Telecinco said first- half net income soared 73 percent to 107.4 million euros.
Gross TV ad sales in Italy gained 5.3 percent to 1.44 billion euros in the first six months. Revenue at the pay-TV unit, which has about 3 million active customers, rose 55 percent to 229.7 million euros. Mediaset said its pay-TV business broke even at the operating level in the second quarter thanks to the “sustained rise” in revenue at Premium.
Mediaset, based near Milan, reiterated a forecast of an increase in full-year 2010 net income.
--Editor: Dan Liefgreen
To contact the reporters on this story: Chiara Remondini in Milan at cremondini@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Vidya Root at vroot@bloomberg.net.
