Sat.1, ProSieben, Kabel 1 and N24 are well set up against competition / SevenOne Media wants to further expand market leadership
July 2004 ProSiebenSat.1-Group and its TV-sales house SevenOne Media presented today in Düsseldorf the programs of their TV-stations Sat.1, ProSieben, Kabel 1 and N24 for the next season. The TV-company gave representatives of the advertising industry an outlook into the programs that the station family will broadcast this fall and next year. “With our new formats and one of the best supplies of movies and series we’ve never been so well positioned since long“, said Guillaume de Posch, member of the executive board of the ProSiebenSat.1-Group. “We assume that this year the audience share of the station family will further increase in comparison to last year.“ During the first half of 2004 ProSiebenSat.1-Group increased the audience share in the target group 14-49, relevant for the advertising industry, already from 0.6 percent points to 29.5 percent.
ProSiebenSat.1-Group invests over a billion Euro yearly in the programs of its stations. The TV-company is one of the major customers for German producers and the most important business partner in Europe for the Hollywood-studios. The list of suppliers includes all well-known studios; from Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. , Lucasfilm, Disney, Columbia, Miramax up to Paramount. Recently the TV-company renewed the contract with Dreamworks-productions till the year 2010. Apart from the included movie- and series-licenses the station group also wants to benefit from its own program developments. A special unit for format development will make sure that TV-trends will be introduced faster into the programs of the group in the future. Presently the ProSiebenSat.1-Group is particularly focussing on event-programs and new reality-formats.
“We will make our stations still faster, still more alive and still more emotional“, announced ProSiebenSat.1-director Guillaume de Posch. “It is necessary to further strengthen our station brands. This is the condition to succeed as TV-company also in the future.“ The member of the executive board of ProSiebenSat.1-Group has adjusted his primary advertising market-forecast upwards for this year. De Posch expects the TV-market to grow by about two percent net in 2004. The group forecasted a stagnant market so far.
The moderate growth will be mainly due to the branches telecommunication, IT, financial service providers, automobile and trade. “Also our new client business shows a slight increase in comparison to the previous year“, said Peter Christmann, member of the sales and marketing executive board of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG and managing director of SevenOne Media. Particularly the continuously increasing TV-consumption, which reached a peak with a viewing time of 190 minutes per day on the average in the first half of 2004 [Basis: 14 - 49 years] argues for TV-advertising.
For the first half of 2004 Christmann draws a positive balance: “We notice tailwind also in the advertising market– we have already achieved many goals.“ With a gross advertising turnover of 1.58 billion Euro SevenOne Media increased the share of advertising by 5.7 percent in comparison to the previous year period. With this result the marketer lies better than competitor IP Deutschland [RTL-Group], that had to accept a minus of 1.1 percent in the comparison period [incl. RTL2: 0.0 percent]. The biggest challenge for TV-sales house is the reduction of the gross-net gap of the advertising revenues, which has enormously increased in the last years. In 2003 on average for all German stations only 51.4 Euro net remained from 100 Euro gross. “An absolutely critical limit has been reached, this development is dangerous for the whole market“, warned the SevenOne Media-managing director. “We must stop and reverse this negative trend.“ The marketer of the ProSiebenSat.1-Group has already succeeded in this during the first half year, having already performed two percent points better than the market with a gross-net gap of 53.4 percent in 2003.
For 2005 the marketer has clearly defined its goals: apart from the extension of the market leadership, the marketer will especially concentrate on the topics around the future of advertisement. In a first step SevenOne Media will extend its offers of integrated and cross medial communication concepts and will also bring to market products exploiting the ancillary rights of programs. In doing so the spectrum ranges from TV-spots over online, teletext and mobile up to merchandising, DVDs and events, as the marketer showed with the example of the ProSieben-program “Popstars“. In a second step, according to the planning of SevenOne Media, the relevance and functionality of TV-advertising should be increased in the framework of TV-digitalization.
“We are well equipped for the digital era“, pointed out Christmann. “We absolutely take serious all risks of digitalization, but in fact we see the enormous potential offered by the new digital and interactive ad forms.“ That way the EPG [Electronic Program Guide] can adopt for example the function of an electronic mail box for personalized direct marketing. Classical ad spots, serving as powerful teasers, can point to tailor made micro channels in which the viewer can access further information about the product. “But the condition is that the digital net will have a feedback channel“, said Christmann. The viewers seem to be ready for interactivity. Over 20 percent of viewers already today have a high interest in additional advertising services like the demand for product information, according to the results of a survey by SevenOne Media.
“However, free TV – whether privatly or publicly organized – will stay the most important medium also in the future “, underlined Christmann. “Free-TV continues to determine the relevant set of viewers.“ According to an analysis by SevenOne Media 90 percent of the actual TV-consumption is limited to only 6.8 TV-stations. “Without the marketing-power of the big stations it will be difficult for the digital special interest channels“, said the member of the sales and marketing executive board of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG.
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