Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to MFE-Mediaforeurope Group first half 2026 results conference call. Thank you for joining us today.

The speakers are Matteo Cardani, Chief Marketing Officer of MFE Advertising, and Simone Sole, Group CFO. Let me hand over immediately to Matteo, who will take you through the advertising key business drivers of the first half.

Matteo, please go ahead.

Thanks, Sara. Good evening, everybody.

Thank you for joining us today. We will begin with a review of our first half '26 results and provide a brief outlook on the key indicator shaping the current trading period.

Before discussing our first half performance, just a brief recap of the broader context. The first 6 months of 2026 were shaped by a macroeconomic and geopolitical environment that remain uncertain, definitely, with ongoing international tensions and pressures on energy cost.

This led to a slowdown in advertising investment, particularly across traditional media, because in times of uncertainty, in the very short term, performance-driven investments are less affected by cost-cutting tactics compared to brand-building investment. That is why advertisers remain cautious and increasingly selective in their spending decisions, and the market resulting in a limited visibility and a high degree of short-term volatility.

In addition to this general macroeconomic environment, we should also remind the fact that the first part of the year and also Q3, July month, was also influenced by the FIFA World Cup. I have to remind that the event was carried by other broadcasters, different from MFE, across all the three of our core markets, and this affected audience dynamics and advertising demand during the period, particularly in Spain and Germany, where audience engagement around the tournament was especially strong.

Simply a reminder of the fact that differently from other European broadcasters, Mediaforeurope did not have any sport rights around World Cup in '26. In the chart number 3, you see that the underlying economic indicators anyway remained broadly supportive.

We still are experiencing growth in consumer spending on goods and services across the three markets, a positive gross domestic product growth expectation from 0.5% in Italy to 2.1% in Spain. Of course, there are some concerns in the three countries, and they are increasing concerns over the past months that the average inflation above 2% could be a constraint for a growth of demand.

Having said that, in the following chart, number 4, the slide shows the contribution of each advertising sector to MFE advertising revenue performance during the first half '26 across our three core markets. Sectors are ranked based on their contribution, and the chart is quite self-explanatory, you can see the differences across the three countries, and the different sector dynamics in the three countries partially explain different underlying market dynamics, mainly for the television core business.

Moving to let's say, our business performance KPI, let's have a look at linear audience performance. Notwithstanding let's say, all the effects that I mentioned before, our viewing metrics remain strong across all three markets.

Despite a highly competitive viewing environment, the presence of major sporting events such the Winter Olympic Games hosted by Italy and the FIFA World Cup, audience share levels across our markets remain broadly stable. The average audience share in the three markets, it's around 25%, as in H1 '25.

That means that regarding linear television on a daily reach, we approximately reach more than 70 million viewers. The scale and the quality of our audiences, of course, remain a key competitive advantage, and you can appreciate these in the fact that 25% of audience share delivers an advertising revenue market share of 44% across our core markets.

This is with regard to linear audiences, and in chart number 6, you can appreciate the overall potential of our, let's say, audience platform across linear and digital cross-media reach, reaching 190 million users in a month. What drives this, let's say, audience potential, of course, is content strategy.

I'm commenting chart number 7. We do believe in reach with quality.

We do believe in scale, reach, and quality, and premium content drives the audience leadership across platforms. Across our three core markets, our flagship programs continue to attract large audiences and demonstrate the strength of our national content offering.

As the chart illustrates, our leading entertainment formats and scripted formats generate substantial incremental reach through connected TV, on-demand, and second-screen viewing. Thanks to this content strategy, we are significantly expanding audience delivery beyond traditional linear television.

We keep on investing on this content and formats that has a high audience-transformative power from linear to digital in a total video perspective. From a business material point of view, this is the foundation of our MFE Group KPIs regarding digital transformation.

In chart number 8, you can have a short synthesis of our key performance indicators in H1. We continue to strengthen our digital ecosystems across all three markets.

Overall, our digital platforms reach over 32 million viewers in Europe and more than 70 million browsers, providing us with a broad audience base that we are progressively converting into deeper, more direct relationships. Now we have 15 million monthly logged-in users across the group, and, of course, our focus is increasingly on further qualifying this audience, encouraging more users to engage regularly with our platforms and to become registered, profiled, loyal users over time.

This, of course, will improve our digital monetization. If you take a look at the further KPI, total time spent compared to the number of total video views, you can appreciate that compared to a +3.5% increase in total video views, we are delivering a +11% in total time spent, and this is a clear engagement metric because when you have a time-spent increase higher than video views increase, it's a clear signal of users' loyalty and content engagement with premium quality content as said before.

We confirm the fact that as audience consumption expand across platforms, we continue to benefit from a highly effective monetization model. In chart number 9, we confirm that if we put to 100 the average revenue per hour on a linear TV hour consumption, our digital and addressable video offering generates a revenue per hour index of 178.

This demonstrates the increasing value of digital consumption, and so we are not scared, but we are accelerating, to some extent, the gradual shift of audience consumption from linear only to linear plus digital environments. Each additional viewing hour in a digital addressable environment contributes more than proportionally to our revenue generation and profitability.

Having said that, I'm moving to chart number 10, all in all, this is our trend in net advertising revenue, all media, in the three regions, H1 '26. As I reminded at the opening of this presentation, the first half of '26 was marked by a challenging market environment, impacted by international geopolitical context, a continued pressure on the linear TV advertising market, and all the European broadcasters are experiencing this pressure.

On top of this, we have, let's say, the FIFA World Cup that made the second quarter comparatively more challenging for us compared to the Q1. Overall, we closed the first half of the year with advertising revenue of €1,991 million, down 5.2% year on year.

This is, let's say, the short-term perspective, but as we presented and commented on in our fiscal year '25 results presentation, we are strongly committed and we continue to execute our business compass strategy and deliver against our objectives. We want to leverage our leading local position and progressively build a more integrated and scalable international advertising platform.

Having said that, in chart number 11, the last four charts are evidence of these strategies going on. We are building a European platform, and so I confirm that we are strengthening our international advertising proposition.

Our international advertising strategy is delivering tangible results. They are actually material, the international ad sales contribution.

Early performance has been ahead of expectations. There is a solid contribution from new business, and there is a growing interest from international clients and agencies that consider Mediaforeurope proposition a real, viable alternative to an international market dominated only by global operators.

Here we are definitely on track or even better than our expectations. Secondly, regarding chart number 13, our digital revenues continue to outperform.

We are particularly happy about the pace of our innovation in advertising products and technology, in particular the digital revenues continues to outperform, supported by the growing contribution from connected TV that is growing highly double digit, the increasing adoption of programmatic advertising. We are aligning our ad stack across the three regions, and so as a result, across MFE markets, digital revenues increased their share on total advertising revenues year on year.

The average growth is double-digit, and I mentioned the fact that on connected television is high double-digit growth. This is the second positive contribution to our business.

A third, let's say, diversification areas is the fact that we are expanding into new addressable market segments through the development of our small, medium business proposition. I'm commenting chart number 14.

Italy continues to lead these initiatives, and we are on track or even better than expected. In June, we had the recent launch in Spain, and the rollout in Germany is taking place in the next month of October.

We are, let's say, on track with our, let's say, business development plan. Early performance has been encouraging.

We are validating the attractiveness of the model across different geographies, and even, let's say, trial and repeat dynamics by new clients is really encouraging. Even if we are, for the time being, at an early stage of development, we will continue investing to further scale the business over time.

Last, let's say, good news in this perspective, and I'm commenting chart number 15, in 1 week's time, next Thursday, on September 23rd, we will launch All to One Europe. It's the first European linear and digital simulcast advertising offer.

We will be combining the reach of leading broadcaster in Italy, Spain, and Germany across the countries, and we will provide advertising with a very simple problem, easy to buy, with access to an audience of 14 million viewers almost in one single minute. So, 9:00 p.m., Munich, Madrid, Milan, Italy, German, and Spain, the same spot will be running across the three countries, achieving the highest, the fastest, and the most safe and qualitative reach in just one single minute.

I want to remark these four drivers of our business compass because despite the tough market environment, we are, let's say, strongly committed to deliver our business compass and our business strategy and our plan. Having said that, now I hand over to Simone for the financial part of the presentation.

I thank you.

Thank you, Matteo, and thank you, Sara. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us.

Let me start by taking you through the main highlights of the first half performance. Despite the challenging advertising market environment that Matteo just outlined, for the first half, the group delivered a significant improvement in profitability, supported by strong contribution from especially the entertainment business and in particular the cost-efficiency initiatives implemented across various geographies.

Before commenting the key results presented on slide 17, it's important to remind that year-on-year comparison of the group first half financial performance is impacted by the change in the group perimeter in the fourth quarter of 2025. To provide a clear and meaningful view and underlying the operating performance, we decided to have a presentation that compares the first half results with the respective 2025 pro forma figures, assuming, therefore, the consolidation of ProSiebenSat.1 as of January 1st in 2025.

After this boring methodological introduction, let me lead you through the key financial highlights of the first half results. Group adjusted EBIT reached €146 million, up €153 million year on year, reflecting strong operating step-up achieved during the period, which also translated into a material uplift in adjusted net profit, as we will discuss later in the presentation.

As the group now reports its figures based on two business segments: Entertainment, our core business, and Commerce & Dating based mainly in Germany. The main drivers of the first half growth was clearly the entertainment business, where adjusted EBIT reached €164 million, up to more than €100 million year on year.

The positive development reflects the combination of the operating performance and the progress on the cost efficiency and cost initiatives program. Entertainment cost were reduced by €270 million, reporting almost 10% decrease year on year based on the pro forma figures.

In addition, the €64 million year-on-year reduction in group investment demonstrates that the strong focus of the group in cost and capital discipline during the first half and, I can guarantee, for the rest of the year. From a financial structure perspective, our net financial position for covenant purposes was €857 million at the end of June, showing an improvement of more than €100 million compared to the one in the 1st of January 2026, before, clearly, payment of any dividend.

Even if H1 2026 shows significant improvement in profitability and our execution on the cost efficiency initiatives, we remain fully focused on delivering against our full-year objectives. As we will detail throughout the presentation, the economic and financial performance achieved in the first half provides us with confidence to confirm all our full-year guidance in 2026.

Now let's move to the group consolidated main economic results. Following the finalization of the purchase price allocation in relation to the acquisition of ProSiebenSat.1, starting from the first half of 2026, which is exactly 12 months after the acquisition of control, we decided to further improve the group financial disclosure by isolating PPA-related amortization items arising from the ProSiebenSat.1 acquisition as well as one of the previous acquisition or business combination made by the group in the past.

In line with the market practice and in order to provide a clear view of the underlying performance of the group, we have isolated all the noncash components related to PPA amortization. We consider these metrics to be the most appropriate for assessing the underlying operating performance of the business, and these are the same metrics we use for our internal reporting purposes.

In addition, in the first part of the year, the group incurred in one-off cost in connection with the Pasapalabra proceeding in Spain. Given its nonrecurring nature, we decided to exclude these expenses from the adjusted EBIT to provide, again, a more representative view of the recurring profitability, with the main focus on the entertainment business.

The detailed impact of the PPA, including the relevant breakdown, is now available in the backup of this presentation because I want to make the best use of your time, together with the related impact for the full year. Total net consolidated revenues were at €2.95 billion compared with the pro forma figures of €3.1 billion in the first half of 2025, impacted also by the changes in perimeter occurred in relation to some disposal in the Commerce & Dating business.

Net advertising revenues were something a little bit above €2 billion, while other revenues amounted for €875 million. On the cost side, also at the group level, the reduced cost recover more than proportionally the negative revenues trend.

Total operating expenses decreased from €2.66 billion to €2.38 billion, an improvement of €285 million, or approximately 10.7%, also including change occurred in ProSiebenSat.1 consolidation perimeter. TV rights amortization and other D&A also decreased by approximately €59 million, from €488 million to €429 million, given also the change in the accounting methodology of TV rights amortization implemented by ProSiebenSat.1.

As a result, adjusted EBIT moved from a negative of €7.3 million on the 2025 pro forma basis to around €146 million this year, up by €153 million. Below the EBIT, financial losses were broadly stable around €52 million, and conservatively, we continue to expect total interest charges of €130 million for the full year given also the interest trend in the eurozone.

Associates remained broadly unchanged in H1 and should amount to around €20 million in the full year. At the bottom line, adjusted net profit increased from €7 million on a pro forma basis to €50.5 million, with an increase of around €44 million.

Let's move to the entertainment business. Total revenue were €2.37 billion compared with the pro forma figures of €2.7 billion in the first half of last year.

I don't want to comment more because Matteo has already commented net advertising revenues in the different geography. Let me give just a comment on other revenues that amount to €377 million, slightly above the €370 million pro forma numbers in 2025, with Italy, Spain broadly flat and Germany a little bit benefiting from growth in the SVOD revenues in Joyn.

While managing the top line in a challenging advertising environment, the strong progress in profitability was primarily driven by significant reduction in the cost base. Total cost decreased from €2.4 billion to €2.2 billion, with an improvement of €270 million year on year based on pro forma figures.

These results show that we are proceeding with adequate speed to achieve our targets, even incorporating also some positive phasing and accounting alignment between ProSiebenSat.1 and MFE in the first part of the year. This cost discipline has more than offset the decline in the revenues and resulted in a marked increase of the adjusted EBIT to €164 million versus the pro forma 2025 of €47.5 million.

I have to say that we are bang on track with the cost initiative and the efficiency program. This allows to confirm the ambition guidance for the full year 2026.

As a reminder, we expect to have in 2026, in the entire year, between €120 million and €160 million total efficiency. We can confirm also the progress in the next years to come.

Let's move to investment now. Total group investment in the first half amounted to €485 million compared to €584 million on a pro forma basis in the first half of 2025.

The largest component remains TV rights and cinema at €389 million versus something above €400 million in the same period last year, and technical and intangible investment amounted to €96 million compared to €144 million in the compared period. Overall, the total investment were approximately €64 million lower year on year.

The declining trend in TV rights, cinema, and technical investment is part of our plan of cash efficiencies and initiatives. At the same time, the group confirmed its main strategic focus to invest in two main areas: local content and scalable technology, supporting and preserving the long-term value of the business.

The overall picture is one of lower total investment year on year while continuing to protect strategic investment required for the long-term competitiveness of the group. We are confirming our guidance in Italy and Spain, where we aim to achieve around €400 million compared to €337 million of last year.

Let me go through the last slide: cash flow evolution and financial position. The group generated €47 million of free cash flow in the first half, whereby Italy and Spain cash generation remains strong.

We are close to €200 million, slightly less than last year, but mainly reflecting the advertising market weakness in the relevant countries. We then had €97 million equity investments in these investment and other items, which include the one-off cash impact of €75 million related to the Pasapalabra proceedings.

Change in consolidation perimeter contributed for €38 million, while dividend received and dividend paid had a limited overall impact. For covenant purposes, excluding IFRS and ProSiebenSat.1 net debt, net financial position improved of around €100 million to €857 million at the end of June.

Overall, as we remain very focused on cash, capital allocation discipline, and cost savings in order to further deleverage. On leverage, we can confirm the guidance during the full-year presentation, for which we expect in a reasonably fast deleveraging, targeting around 1x net debt to EBITDA ratio.

This is just for Italy and Spain in the next couple of years, assuming a stabilization of the advertising market in the coming years. I guess that was my last slide, I would hand over to the Q&A session now.

Yes. Good evening, Matteo.

Good evening, Sara. Good evening, Simone.

Hope your eye is better, Simone. I'll be greedy and I'll ask four questions.

The first one for Matteo is, can we have TV trends in the third quarter in your three markets? The other one for Simone is, the synergies were much higher in 2026 versus the initial plan you unveiled at the time of the merger, but you've never updated that plan.

Higher synergies in '26 means lower in '27, '28. Can we have the extra synergies versus '26 in '27 and '28?

The third question is now that you understand ProSieben better, what can you do to increase free cash flow outside of cost-cutting? How much free cash flow is in Entertainment versus Commerce & Dating?

If you keep only flaconi and Dating, is the free cash flow better? Then lastly, any developments around the Vivendi stake?

Are you speaking to them? What might happen here?

Thank you.

Let me try to answer the first questions on finance. We remain on our target, €120 million, €160 million synergies and cost efficiencies.

The reason is there are different reasons. Because still, there is strong uncertainty on the revenue side, we prefer to remain conservative on this.

Secondly, because part of the synergies that you have seen in the first half are in relation to, as I say, accounting alignment between ProSieben and MFE, especially regarding the TV rights depreciation. We are still there, maybe cautiously, but we remain still there.

No changes in the progression of the synergies going forward. To be honest, I don't want to avoid the question in the sense that, clearly, we have estimated a step-up of the synergies and the cost efficiency in the next 4 years.

We are not yet at the time in which we can say that the synergies, the total amount of the synergies and efficiency could be higher than expected. For sure, it will be faster.

I would say that probably they will be front-loaded, more likely front-loaded than back-loaded. Regarding cash flow, what can we do to improve cash flow on ProSieben?

ProSieben is very fourth quarter-weighted in terms of cash flow. Unfortunately, this depends pretty much on the revenue progression throughout the years and the ability to cash in in the fourth quarter of the on the last quarter of the year.

What can we do? For sure, Entertainment is producing cash, not huge and certainly we are not happy with the present level.

No one is happy with the present level of cash generated by the Entertainment business. There is still some work to do.

If flaconi and Dating are producing cash, probably you named the only two assets that are producing some cash, and therefore, yes, keeping flaconi and Dating helps in a way. They're not core business and therefore, let's say, they cannot be considered an asset of ProSieben, of the group, in the longer term unless we find ways to extract synergies between Entertainment and these businesses.

The last question was regarding Vivendi. I believe there are no, let's say, stable contacts with them.

Clearly, there are contact, very professional. I believe that they are happy shareholder, also because of the dividend that in the meantime we distributed.

Honestly, there are no other, let's say, for the time being, there are no projects, no industrial cooperation, there are no plans whatsoever. For the time being, they are shareholders.

We manage the company and hope that they are happy being shareholder of MFE.

Hey, thanks, Julien. I answer the question about TV trends in Q3 in the three markets.

Let me do one step backwards. Q2 was, of course, tough as expected because in the three countries there were the World Cup affecting our revenue progression.

Of course, the outbreak of, let's say, the tension between Iran and the US affected a initial part of Q2. Regarding Q3, what we are observing, for the time being, there are no official market data.

They are updated to June, maximum July, but there are no official market data on the trends of Q3. The general pattern we are observing is a sort of stabilization of the trend in the three countries.

Q3 is affected in July in the three countries for the final stage of the World Cup, that was the most important with all the most important TV matches with the highest audiences. July was still tough, but August and September are to some extent stabilizing.

That is why if I have to do a general remark regarding Q3, given current market indication, we expect consolidated advertising revenue to decline by low single digit year on year in Q3. I anticipate a possible question from other people attending the conference.

For the time being, honestly, we have really, really limited visibility on Q4. My, let's say, general consideration is that while on the one hand, in the three regions, we have a linear television decreasing low single digit with, let's say, different degrees in the three countries, we are all experiencing in the three countries, in the three regions, a double-digit increase in digital and connected TV investment in the market, and we are profiting from that.

If we take a total video perspective, the combined balance between the linear TV underlying baseline trend and the growing connectivity plus digital is, of course, better than linear TV only.

Thanks. A really quick follow-up, Simone.

If you keep Entertainment, flaconi, and Dating at ProSieben and sell all the other assets, how much free cash flow contribution do you get as they are?

No, first of all, Julien, it's important to say that ProSieben, it's an independent company, we cannot do anything. They have to, let's say, do things.

They're doing a tremendous job in terms of restructuring the company upside down. To be honest, we need some help in order to restate a proper, let's say, cash flow generation profile.

We need to stabilize the advertising revenues clearly because, clearly, now the situation is such for which, clearly, it's very difficult to make prediction. I would be happy to answer this question once the advertising market in Germany and particularly on ProSieben stabilize.

Now it's very difficult. Sorry about that.

Grazie.

The business is safe, it's running well. There is a good engine.

The problem is that advertising market, and they need some time to, let's say, restructure the company a little bit more. They're doing very good job.

Grazie.

Yes, hi. Thank you for taking my two ones.

First one is on the initiative for pan-European advertising spot. It will be just for 1 day or starting from September 23rd?

Second question is for Simone on which kind of free cash flow we may expect for the full year when looking just at Italy and Spain? Thank you.

Many things happened since we gave a guidance at the full-year, let's say, presentation. Clearly, there is, let's say, geopolitical uncertainty which is going on.

Inflation is going up. The consumption trend is not really going in the right direction.

I have to say also some disappointment on the overall advertising market during the World Cup in our relevant countries, not only because we didn't have the rights, but overall, the advertising was a little bit disappointing. I believe that the cash flow generation in Italy and Spain will be strong.

Very difficult to give you now a guidance or a precise guidance because we need to wait for the year-end. Difficult, I believe that probably we will be I don't know.

It's very difficult. It depends what you put on the revenue side.

I believe that we can stay more or less where we are now, but it depends on the revenue side.

Thank you.

Hey, I answer your question, Fabio. Thanks a lot for the question because it gives me the opportunity to give more, let's say, colors on what we are doing on this side.

A long story short is we are starting on September the 23rd. It's quite a symbolic date because the All to One offer was launched in Italy in 2013, exactly on the same date.

We have a European client investing, but now the offer is on and is available from 20 September 23rd on. The real point is that behind it's like the tip of the iceberg because over the past 8 months, we aligned all the digital marketing and ad operations teams across the three countries.

We are sharing best practice. We are aligning our full advertising tech stacks.

We are aligning linear operations. The vision is that we are, let's say, circulating best practice across the countries, aligning the portfolio of ad formats, and we want to make our offer easy to buy across Europe.

This is just the first product. Let's say, the advertising message is stay connected because each month we will deliver an innovation.

The concept is very simple. We are all striving for the highest quality, fastest, and safer reach, and so we are providing this reach in 1 minute across the three countries at 9:00 p.m.

It's linear plus digital because, as I said, total video perspective is our mantra. This is the first product, but we have an innovation plan.

For example, we are aligning all the short advertising break in the three countries, advertising break lasting just 1 minute, positioned in the highest peak of the audiences in order to give a high-quality position to clients. We are aligning our offer, but respecting the national standards in terms of negotiation, this is must be said.

This is absolutely clear. This is, let's say, a work stream we are particularly satisfied because we are learning of each other and we are circulating the best practice across the countries.

The acceptance and the interest on the clients and agency side is definitely high. You should consider this product as a sort of matryoshka because you can buy the All to One linear plus digital only in Germany, only in Spain, only in Italy, or you can buy it throughout of the three regions.

It's scalable and flexible across the three countries. Thanks.

Fabio, just a quick, let's say, follow-up. Clearly, well, you know that we had this €75 million proceeding for the Pasapalabra lawsuit, strictly excluding this one-off event.

Thanks.

Thank you, and good evening. Just a quick follow-up.

The first one is on your other revenue guidance. Probably I missed this part of the presentation.

In case, if you can repeat it. The second is again on guidance.

You are confirming the guidance on leverage. I wonder if you can detail your assumptions about this kind of guidance, because you change the accounting, you got the nonrecurring cash out, I want to be sure to have fully understood on what numbers you're talking on.

The last question is a more business-related. The advertising environment has been weak in general, and some people are wondering if the use of artificial intelligence tools from consumers is somehow eroding some budgets somewhere.

I ask you if you can comment on this. Thank you.

On the other revenues, no, we confirmed the guidance we gave, flat year on year based on pro forma 2025. As far as leverage, no, well, there are no big differences because, as we measure leverage for covenant purposes.

As covenants regards only Italy and Spain. Germany has its own covenants, which are on different, let's say, KPIs compared to MFE.

No big changes on our side. We are now discussing with our relationship bank regarding how to treat the Pasapalabra proceeding, but apart from that, no changes.

The metrics will be the one already we used to have in the past, net debt on reported EBITDA.

Thank you.

I thank you, Andrea, for your questions regarding advertising and artificial intelligence. Of course, is a trending topic in our market, raising a lot of interest and also concerns.

Let's see what happens. Of course, we are all commenting on the fact that ChatGPT is starting delivering advertising in an artificial intelligence environment is a new challenge.

From my perspective, it is competing directly with our, let's say, environment like the typical search engines or social media. Honestly, we have to take care of this.

Now your question gives me the opportunity to add an additional information. Of course, artificial intelligence is in our plans and is our, let's say, day-by-day reality.

Coming back to the work streams across the three countries we set up over the past 8 months regarding digital marketing and ad operations, we are sharing all internal best practices on artificial intelligence. For example, we had a best practice with contextual advertising, using artificial intelligence to optimize the contents and quality of the placement of the spots in total video fruition.

This was started in Spain, adopted by Italy, and definitely launch in springtime in Germany. Artificial intelligence is reshaping our, let's say, internal ad operation management systems, delivering, of course, efficiencies, and will definitely contribute to the cost-efficiency plan Simone was keep on, let's say, reminding during his presentation.

We are positive about beneficial effects of artificial intelligence in our, let's say, day-by-day workflow and operations, also with media agencies.

Thank you. Thank you, Simone and Matteo.

Yes, good afternoon, everybody. Just a follow-up on advertising trends of the first 6 of the first 6 months.

Do you think the decline, especially in Germany, for the advertising is more related to a cyclical component or an outflow of advertising budgets towards OTT?

Okay. I thank you for the question.

Yes, you're right. You read the figures in our presentation.

There is a general trend, but let's say there are different shades of advertising trends in the three regions. Definitely Germany is the toughest market for many reason.

There are macroeconomic reason, of course. GDP growth is low, the confidence indices is not at their maximum, and for sure is one of the most competitive market in Europe in terms of the new competition between broadcasters, streamers, and over-the-top.

This is the general explanation. Let me say that from a positive perspective, we are, let's say, taking advantage from the lessons learned in Germany to accelerate our innovation path throughout Europe and also in Italy and Spain to protect our business.

On top of that, the World Cup impact was quite high in Germany and also in Spain, and so as I said before, after July, we are, let's say, experiences a stabilization in trend, even if we have, honestly, real limited visibility on Q4.

Okay. Thank you, Matteo, and thank you, Simone, and thank you, guys, for all the questions and for taking the time today for the conference call.

As always, we'll be available for any question, information you would like to ask. Have a nice evening.