Yes. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our journalist call for RTL Group's half year results 2026.

The speaker for today's presentation are Clement Schwebig, the Group CEO; and Bjorn Bauer, our CFO. The presentation for this call is available on our corporate website, rtl.com, following the link included in our press release under Download.

The agenda on Slide 2 shows the areas our management team will cover today. After the presentation, Clement and Bjorn are available to answer your questions.

And with this, I'll hand over to Clement to run you through the highlights of the first half of 2026.

Thank you, Oliver, and good morning to you all. Thank you for joining us this morning.

As you may know, I joined or I should say, I rejoined RTL Group in April and took over as the CEO in May. Over the past few weeks, I've been meeting executive teams and experts across the group, but also our partners across the industry.

And what I can say that I'm truly excited about the level of creativity, enthusiasm and drive I can see throughout the organization. As this is my first journalist call as CEO of RTL Group, I look forward to engaging with many of you in the future.

Now let me highlight the most important developments of the past 6 months before Bjorn will run you through the numbers in greater detail. So today, we are commenting our interim results for the first half of the year 2026.

And this -- the first 6 months of 2026, we delivered on our transformation strategy with very tangible results, and we are executing it with a, speed; and b, discipline. Only 10 weeks ago, we successfully closed the Sky Deutschland transaction.

And look, this is probably the most transformational deal in the history of RTL Group in the last 25 years of existence. We were successful in getting the approval of the European Commission without any remedies.

Now our RTL DACH management team is moving quickly to integrate the business, and we are fully focused on delivering the EUR 250 million in synergies over the next 3 years. Also, our streaming services continue to grow dynamically and deliver now strong profitability.

This is a turning point in our operation. After years of carefully investing in content and tech infrastructure, streaming is now highly high-margin contributor and high-growth segment at the same time.

As a result, we now expect streaming to contribute around EUR 100 million to our full year adjusted EBITA. In our linear TV business, we faced a soft TV advertising market, actually in line with our expectations.

But at the same time, we gained market share in both TV audience and TV advertising in Germany and France. In France, this was clearly driven by the coverage of the Football World Cup on M6 and M6+, a powerful demonstration of the unique power of our content and brands and also the exceptional reach that TV offers in the current fragmented audience environment.

So for the financial year 2026, we confirm our adjusted EBITA target of around EUR 725 million, in line with our previous guidance. We'll look at the outlook in greater detail at the end of our presentation.

At the same time, we confirm our medium-term adjusted EBITA target of EUR 1 billion with streaming being the key driver for future profit growth at RTL. And now over to Bjorn, who will take you through the group's financial results in more detail.

Yes. Thank you, Clement, and good morning, everyone, also from my side.

First, one comment regarding the presentation of our numbers. The Sky DACH acquisition closed on 1st of June 2026.

And so our first half results include Sky DACH for 1 month, i.e., June, following its full consolidation. Let's start with a look at our key financials on Slide 6.

In the first half of 2026, RTL Group's revenue grew 3.9% to EUR 2.9 billion, mainly driven by the acquisition of Sky Deutschland and continued streaming growth. Organically, group revenue was stable.

Our adjusted EBITA increased from EUR 160 million to EUR 239 million. This corresponds to a significant margin uplift from 5.8% to 8.3%.

The strong increase was mainly driven by the streaming business, the acquisition of Sky Deutschland and a higher contribution from Fremantle. Adjusted EBITA, excluding the impact from Sky Deutschland, was also up by EUR 18 million.

Group profit from continuing operations increased significantly from EUR 6 million to EUR 61 million in the first half of 2026, mainly due to the contribution of Sky Deutschland. Over to Slide 7.

Let's look at the development of our adjusted EBITA. The bridge shows the various effects in the first half of 2026.

As expected, we see lower contributions from the group's linear TV channels, mainly due to higher programming costs related to the Football World Cup coverage at Groupe M6 in June. The decrease was offset by significantly higher adjusted EBITA from streaming, up by EUR 65 million compared to the first half of 2025.

Fremantle's adjusted EBITA increased by EUR 21 million to EUR 60 million and is well on track to reach the target margin of 9% in the full year 2026 as previously guided. Sky Deutschland contributed EUR 61 million to the group's adjusted EBITA in the first half of 2026.

This is, however, not indicative of the full year adjusted EBITA contribution by Sky Deutschland as the month of June is seasonally highly favorable with no Bundesliga or German Cup football matches broadcast and no related sports rights and production costs incurred in June. We'll come back later to this in the outlook presentation.

Now let's take a closer look at the financial development across our main business units, and let's move to the next slide. Let me start with our largest unit, RTL Deutschland.

Total revenue of RTL Deutschland was up 11.1% to EUR 1.3 billion. This strong increase was again mainly driven by the scope effect from Sky Deutschland acquisition and higher streaming revenue.

Both effects more than compensated for lower linear TV advertising revenue. The German net TV advertising market remained challenging, estimated to be down minus 6% to minus 7% compared to the first half of 2025, and RTL Deutschland continued to outperform the market.

Adjusted EBITA increased from EUR 17 million in the first half of 2025 to EUR 129 million in the first half of this financial year, mainly due to the acquisition of Sky Deutschland and the streaming service RTL Plus, which became profitable in the first half of 2026. As mentioned before, for Sky Deutschland, the month of June is seasonally favorable and not indicative for the full year.

RTL Deutschland, excluding Sky Deutschland, achieved a combined average audience share of 26.3% in the target group of viewers aged 14 to 59. We, therefore, widened the lead over our main commercial competitor, ProSiebenSat.1, to 6.6 percentage points.

Let's turn to France and take a closer look at Group M6. Total revenue of Group M6 increased by 1.7% to EUR 644 million.

The main drivers were higher digital advertising revenue and significantly higher TV advertising revenue in the month of June due to the broadcast of the Football World Cup. The French linear TV advertising market was estimated to be down minus 10% to minus 10%, minus 9% to minus 10% in the reporting period with Group M6 significantly outperforming the market, thanks to its highly successful World Cup coverage.

As expected, the adjusted EBITA of Groupe M6 decreased to EUR 54 million, mainly due to higher programming costs for the Football World Cup and lower linear TV advertising revenue in the period January to May. Our French family of free-to-air channels increased its average audience share in the commercial target group to 20% (sic) [ 22.0% ], a record high.

Now let's turn to our content business, Fremantle. The global video production market continued to be challenging.

Fremantle's revenue came in at EUR 835 million in the first half of 2026, down 7.7% year-on-year. This was mainly due to timing effects at Fremantle drama and film business, while the entertainment and documentaries business were broadly stable.

We expect this development to reverse in the second half of the year, resulting in slightly higher revenue for the full year 2026, driven by the delivery of major productions such as Baywatch and Kill Jacky. Adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 83 million, which corresponds to a margin of 9.9%, driven by continued cost control measures such as further reduction of overhead costs as well as portfolio effects.

Adjusted EBITA was EUR 60 million, which corresponds to a 7.2% margin, up from 4.3% in the first half of 2025. Fremantle is well on track to reach its 9% margin target for the full year 2026 as previously guided.

I now hand back to Clement for the strategy update and the outlook for the full year 2026.

Thank you, Bjorn. Slide 10.

So the strategic framework of RTL Group is based on 3 priorities: core, growth and alliance & partnerships. Core means investing in premium content, strengthening our families of channels as well as cost and portfolio management.

Growth areas are our streaming services, advertising technology and addressable TV as well as content production with Fremantle. Alliances & partnerships in advertising, content and distribution.

Moving on to Slide 11. Look, Bjorn already touched upon the record average audience share of our French family of free-to-air channel.

The FIFA World Cup was much more than just a major audience success. It was a strategic milestone for Group M6.

The tournament demonstrated the power of combining premium live content with our broadcast, streaming and digital platforms. It strengthened the M6 brand, accelerated the growth of M6+ and expanded our reach across all audiences and platform.

In short, the World Cup created value well beyond the event itself and supports our long-term growth ambitions. Now let's look closer at some of the key achievements.

So 60 million viewers followed the World Cup in France on M6 and M6+. The France versus Spain semifinal was followed by 20.3 million viewers alone, which makes it the second highest audience ever recorded by M6.

The streaming services, M6+ gained 4.2 million new registered users and recorded more than 100 million video views on M6+ during the tournament. The reach was extended significantly to 1.4 billion video views on company's social media channels.

The streaming technology platform provided by Bedrock delivered reliable and stable performance supporting the exceptional increase in audience traffic during the World Cup. Now let's turn to Slide 12, please.

In line with our strategic focus on streaming as a key growth drivers, we closed the acquisition of Sky Deutschland (DACH) on June 1. As I said, this transaction is a transformational move for RTL Group, bringing our full year revenue to EUR 8 billion and paid subscription to around 12.4 million in the DACH region, making us the clear #3 in the German-speaking streaming market.

Alongside the strategic rationale of such an acquisition, we will create significant shareholder value and deliver annual synergies of EUR 250 million within the next 3 weeks -- 3 years. Let's take a closer look at the combined power of RTL Group and Sky Deutschland on the next slide.

The combination creates a unique video proposition for entertainment, sports and news across free TV, pay TV and streaming and Sky complement each other in terms of business models and revenue streams, target groups and content offers. With more than EUR 2.5 billion of annual content spend, we unite market-leading reality TV, news, entertainment shows and local drama with Sky's premium sports rights and global hit series and films.

The combined portfolio connects with 100 million people in the DACH region through every daily touch point from TV screen to mobile devices, radio and print. Our reach extends far beyond video entertainment into trusted news as well as radio and podcast, creating unique cross-promotional power and monetization opportunity.

Now turning over to Slide 14 and the development of our streaming business. Streaming is at the core of the transformation of RTL Group.

Having invested significantly over the past years, our investments are now paying off. Our streaming services continue to grow strongly, making RTL Group one of the leading European media companies in streaming.

Please note, the numbers shown on this slide are on a strict like-for-like basis and do not include Sky and WOW. This gives you a clear picture of the organic growth over the past years.

Paid streaming subscription for RTL Plus and M6+ have increased 21% year-on-year, and we continue to target 9 million subscription by the end of 2026. Streaming revenue and viewing time also continue to grow dynamically.

Streaming revenue grew 27% in the first half of 2026, and we continue to expect EUR 600 million to EUR 650 million in revenue from our streaming services for the full year. Profitability of our streaming businesses improved by EUR 65 million year-on-year.

Therefore, we now expect adjusted EBITA from streaming to increase to around EUR 100 million. Moving on to Slide 15 now and a closer look at our global content business, Fremantle.

So 2 points are of particular importance looking at Fremantle. First, we are seeing significant margin progress.

And second, we remain optimistic that Fremantle will turn to slight top line growth for the full year 2026. In the second half of the year, major productions such as the reboot of the iconic franchise Baywatch and Kill Jacky will be important performance driver for Fremantle.

Fremantle will deliver 12 episodes of the new series of Bay Watch in the second half. The new series will debut on Fox in the U.S.

in January 2027, on Sky in the U.K. and Ireland next year and Amazon Prime Video across key markets such as Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Latin America and India.

Fremantle will also deliver 7 episodes of Kill Jacky in the third quarter of 2026. The series starring Oscar winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones will be available on AMC in the U.S.

in autumn this year. on Amazon Prime Video in the U.K., Ireland, Netherlands, Turkey, Germany and Canada and on HBO Max in Spain, Portugal, France and the Nordics.

Beyond the timing of individual production, the strength of Fremantle lies in its diversified model across genres, markets and customers. Successful new shows strengthen our IP portfolio and create long-term monetization opportunity through distribution, local adaptation and digital platforms.

Fremantle strategic priorities reflect this vision. First, ramp-up of Fremantle own IP development; second, rapid deployment of AI across the company's value chain, then focus on IP-driven acquisition of small- and medium-sized production companies and expansion in attractive geographies and genres.

With Fremantle on track to reach its adjusted EBITDA target margin of 9% this year, we'll maintain focus on continued cost discipline and operating leverage. Together, these priorities will strengthen Fremantle's resilience and drive sustainable growth profits.

Moving now to our outlook for 2026 on Slide 16. Thank you.

Look, the geopolitical and macroeconomic environment remains volatile, and the impact on RTL Group business continues to be hard to predict. So following the acquisition of Sky Deutschland, RTL Group updates its full year revenue and adjusted EBITDA outlook on the basis of: first, the full consolidation of Sky Deutschland for the period from June to December 2026.

The group linear TV advertising revenue decreasing by around 4% in the full year 2026. The group streaming revenue growing by around 25% and Fremantle revenue growing slightly.

RTL Group now expects a full year revenue for 2026 to increase to around EUR 7.1 billion to EUR 7.2 billion, adjusted EBITA for 2026 to increase to around EUR 725 million with a variance of plus/minus 3%, with significant higher contribution from streaming compensating for lower contribution from the group's linear TV channel. This is in line with our previous guidance from March this year.

Adjusted EBITDA for streaming for 2026 to increase to around EUR 100 million compared to the previous guidance range of around EUR 25 million to EUR 50 million. The overview presented here gives you a transparent bridge from the previous outlook, excluding Sky to the new outlook, including Sky for the period June to December 2026.

As explained by Bjorn, the significant adjusted EBITA contribution from Sky for the month of June is not indicative for the full year. With the new Bundesliga and German Cup season starting soon, Deutschland's adjusted EBITDA contribution for the period June to December will be plus/minus 0.

This shows that Sky Deutschland has significantly improved its financial performance over the past years and provides a solid starting point for the EUR 250 million synergy target, which we fully confirm. Finally, the RTL Group's dividend policy remains unchanged.

RTL Group plans to pay out at least 80% of its adjusted full year net results. On Slide 17, let me close our presentation with a few remarks on our medium-term ambition.

We confirm our medium-term adjusted EBITDA target of EUR 1 billion, which represents a 50% increase from EUR 661 million in 2025. What are the key drivers?

First, after years of investment, as we said, the streaming business will generate around EUR 100 million in operating profit this year and then continuously increase the profitability. The acquisition of Sky Deutschland will also generate annual synergies of EUR 250 million.

In the medium term, Fremantle should return to organic growth of around 3% per annum and further expand its margin also with selected M&A. And finally, AI will provide significant benefit across our entire value chain.

And I think this brings us to the end of our presentation, and we will now take your questions, I guess.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you well.

Excellent. So my first question is about the yearly EUR 250 million synergies from Sky Deutschland.

How confident are you about achieving this? And what will be the job cuts?

That's the first question. Second question is also about your competitor, ProSieben.

So they are cutting costs to raise their profitability. Would you say that RTL is pursuing a different strategy of expansion in M&A?

And then my last question is a bit about Fremantle. I've read your press release about additional acquisitions for Fremantle.

Is the broader RTL Group planning any more acquisitions or sales for the rest of the year?

Okay. Thank you for this multilayered questions.

I'll take it from your first one about the synergies with Sky Deutschland. Look, we've done the closing of the deal only 10 weeks ago, and we are moving now quickly to integrate the business and deliver on the synergy target.

And we here, as I said, we absolutely confirm the synergy target of EUR 250 million that we want to achieve in 3 years after this closing. The synergies will ramp up over time.

Most of them will be realized in 2027 and 2028. We have identified that, I would say, around 75% of it, which will be cost related.

And the key drivers will be optimization of the content portfolio across the different pay TV, streaming and free-to-air channel, some overhead reduction, reduction of Sky's internal, external media spend by leveraging RTL's universe. But we also should have revenue synergies as we are looking at upselling existing -- some existing RTL Plus subscribers to Sky's products.

So overall, we're very confident of achieving that. And -- to answer your sub-question there in terms of the job scope, as a combined company, we will consistently and as we've done in the past, we will continue to do that, we align our organization and cost structure with the future of television and streaming and with always having a goal to keep the best talent.

This is really important for us. Having said that, we will also streamline our organization by reducing some of the duplicate structure that we see between the 2 organizations.

So the RTL Deutschland management team is looking at that. So that's for your first question.

The second one is ProSiebenSat.1. I won't comment on what they are doing exactly, but I will tell you that what we are doing is very -- has been very consistent over the years.

We're looking at executing our strategy with cost discipline, and we will continue doing that. For Fremantle, the question was around consolidation and M&A.

The Fremantle is -- how can I say, the strategy of Fremantle is very -- is relatively straightforward. We are looking at continue expanding on some of our most recognizable and beloved IP.

We continue expanding the fan base, drive additional revenue. We have quite an amazing creative launchpad for new formats, entertainment formats, scripted formats, and we'll be looking at rolling out AI.

To your question on M&A, we will continue to focus our acquisition on IP-driven ones, but it has to also help us grow our presence in attractive geographies and genres. And this has been the target so far and will continue to be the approach.

I think otherwise, the question was also whether there is any additional M&A to be expected on the broader RTA Group level until the end of the year. And I think it's fair to say that we're not expecting this.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

I have 2 questions. First, I'd like to focus on the streaming EBITA that you were talking about.

So you're now projecting around EUR 100 million for the full year, up from the previous guidance from EUR 25 million to EUR 50 million. And as I understand it, this excludes any contribution from Sky.

So in the first half of the year, you achieved EUR 31 million. So that implies that you are expecting around -- roughly around EUR 69 million in the second half of the year.

So maybe you can explain a little bit more what specifically drives this acceleration in the second half and why Sky is not contributing to the EUR 100 million for the full year? And then my second question would be now with RTL Plus and Sky under one roof, are you planning a combined streaming bundle or like a joint sports tier that you could offer your clients?

And maybe if that's -- that are your plans, what's the time line for that?

Yes. Thank you for your question.

I'll start off with the question around streaming adjusted EBITA. So yes, to confirm the EUR 100 million do not include any impacts from Sky.

We wanted to make sure that we transparently report on the kind of figure in the same definition as previously. So the EUR 100 million is kind of the same scope that represented streaming business profitability in the past.

We will probably for the full year 2026 figures present a new set of KPIs that then also fully include Sky and provide you, as in the past, meaningful and transparent disclosures. On the development of streaming adjusted EBITA, H1 versus H2, this is a normal seasonal pattern that we've also seen in the past.

So when you look, for example, back to last year, we've also seen a stronger contribution in H2 versus H1. We remain very confident that we'll be able to achieve the EUR 100 million, which would mean a significant very meaningful contribution to our overall profitability, and that is driven on the basis of higher subscribers, higher revenue per subscribers and also dynamically growing advertising revenue on our streaming services.

When it comes to your second question about RTL Plus and Sky streaming, look, as I mentioned, we closed the deal only 10 weeks ago. But what is absolutely clear is that RTL and Sky have a highly complementary business models, revenue streams, whether it's advertising, distribution or subscription, content offers also that are different and target groups.

And now really, our objective is to optimize the value of the combined RTL and Sky portfolio across the free TV, pay TV and streaming. And this we will do that across different type of content.

Sports rights, as you can imagine, has a long tail across the different platforms, and we'll be looking at it. And actually, we -- the program team of RTL Deutschland will be looking at it carefully to really with always having in mind the customers that are consuming the content on the different platforms.

And will be announced, obviously, by RTL Deutschland in due time during their content presentation.

Sorry, maybe just one follow-up regarding the EUR 100 million for the full year. So does that mean just so I don't get it wrong, that Sky is like barely profitable if it doesn't contribute to the EUR 100 million for the full year?

So 2 things. When you look at Sky overall and the contribution to our results, they will be practically 0 for the full year.

And that I believe is already an achievement and is also partly driven by the first realization of synergies given the history of losses of the business on a stand-alone basis. Secondly, streaming really is the scope of our existing platforms, so RTL Plus in Germany, M6+ in France, RTL Plus in Hungary and so on.

And these businesses, combined with Bedrock will be profitable by around EUR 100 million for the full year.

I have to continue, sorry. Mr.

Clement, it seems as though you are continuing the strategy of RTL nearly seamlessly. I wonder, are there any areas in your view where the company could improve?

Or do you see no reason to change anything?

Thank you for the question. First of all, as today is around our interim results for the first half of the year.

I just want to highlight what I find very important is that the current strategy is delivering tangible results. And I think this is for every stakeholders of the company, the most important thing.

We've mentioned the shift from linear TV to streaming. This is the achievement, and we'll continue doing that.

This is absolutely paramount to our strategy. We will continue to offer a very strong streaming offer.

And we're very happy to see that [ NAR ] and for the future, it will deliver high growth with high margin. Second, look, the strategy is on Sky.

-- is and the acquisition of it recently is just at the beginning. So now we need to execute on it, and this is part of the strategy.

And as you can imagine, everything will be in the execution now. We're really focused on that with the RTL Deutschland and Sky Deutschland team to find those synergies and to continue offering the best offer for the customer.

Then the strategy has been for us for -- I don't want to say forever, but for a long time, and we'll continue doing that is gaining audience share and advertising share. This is the core of our business.

And this, again, we show it in the half year results. We have been growing that in the core market of France and Germany.

And what is important for me is that it showcase again that the TV offers an unmatchable reach in a very fragmented audience market. And I think this is something that we will continue to highlight a lot.

When it comes to Fremantle, look, Fremantle, we are expecting to grow our revenue slightly this year. This will be the first time in some years, and so we'll continue doing that.

But we want really to do it with a disciplined approach. And I think the target of the 9% profit margin is key to our strategy.

As we said, we are approaching all that with discipline. So -- sorry for this long thing.

But in other words, I mean, our strategy is working, and this is really important. So we continue to execute on it.

And for me, what is at the core of that is our fundamentals of RTL Group, which is creativity and entrepreneurship. And this is the way we do.

We create content that engage our fans. We now have the ability to do it on a lot of different platforms, which is relatively unique.

And not only does it serve our customer, but also it is a strategy that we will continue to develop, which is also monetizing this audience reach through advertising, but also subscription and also distribution revenue. And this, I think, gives us a very -- not only an ambitious strategy, but also a very balanced approach.

So that being said, obviously, we will remain agile and ambitious. And of course, we continuously review and we'll adapt the strategy to identify new growth opportunities.

But this is really at the core of what we are doing.

Okay. Thank you for giving us the big picture.

And if you look at some details, let's say, processes, procedures, management style, I think you will, however, change something. isn't it?

I'll let you judge it after a few months, I guess, after a few months. I think this is not about change for us.

It's about continuing pressing on this very important strategic priorities that we have. It's not about the style.

It's about the whole team being behind it. And I think I feel very strong about it.

I said it at the very beginning, the way we've interacted with the team has been exceptional. And I feel the ambitious and the enthusiasm to go through and deliver on those strategic priorities.

So I feel very good about it.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, we can hear you.

Great. My question was about a very small part of the Sky Deutschland purchase.

It mentions in the press release that the purchase includes customer relationships in Luxembourg and other places. Could you give me examples of Luxembourg customer relationships that would be included in that?

What does that mean?

Yes. So I'm happy to answer this question.

So the Sky DACH business is centered in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. but has individual customer relationships.

So these are individual persons that subscribe to the Sky service in other German-speaking kind of regions in Europe, that is in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and South Tyrol. So that's what it relates to.

Okay. And one follow-up second question, if I may.

The M6 results on World Cup and the Bundesliga references indicate, and please tell me if I'm wrong, is it correct that as a financial proposition alone, the costs on these football properties are outweighing the profits?

So when you look at the financial performance of the World Cup and what's important to note here, you only see, so to speak, the first half because the World Cup was in June and in July, we're only seeing the first part. which represents the, I'll say, the higher share of the cost is negative on a stand-alone basis.

But as Clement has explained, there are significant benefits to M6 that go beyond the impact of the financials when it comes to new customer relationships of M6+, new relationships with advertising, significant branding opportunities and the likes.

Okay. So yes...

I'm sorry, that was related to M6 and the World Cup. The Bundesliga is different.

Here, the monetization is through basically a paid TV or a paid streaming offering with a higher ARPU. And that business, we will believe we will be able to run on a profitable basis.

Well, I just want to thank you all for joining so early on a Tuesday morning in August and look forward, as I said earlier, to engage in the future. And thank you very much.