ProSiebenSat.1, the German broadcaster controlled by Italy’s MFE-MediaForEurope, took €827m ($939m) from television advertising in the first nine months of 2026, 12% less than a year earlier, according to its third-quarter statement published on Thursday 12 November. Cost cuts still lifted its earnings: EBITDA rose to €198m ($225m) from €39m.
The figures describe a broadcaster earning more from a shrinking business. Group revenue fell 11% to €2.24bn ($2.55bn), mostly because it has sold businesses, chief among them the US arm of the creator network Studio71. Stripped of disposals and currency effects, revenue was down 3%, and the decline is getting steeper.
Key facts
- Nine months to 30 September: revenue €2.24bn, down 11% (down 3% organic); EBITDA €198m, up from €39m; net loss €24m, against €48m a year earlier
- TV advertising in Germany, Austria and Switzerland: €827m, down from €944m; third quarter €261m, down from €300m
- Streaming: Joyn averaged 10.8 million monthly video users, up 29%; its advertising revenue rose 9% and subscription revenue 20%
- Content revenue, mostly production and programme sales: €94m, down from €114m
- Outlook: slight organic revenue decline for 2026, cut on 29 October from slight growth
Advertisers hold back
The third quarter was the weakest of the year so far. TV advertising revenue fell 13% to €261m, and organic group revenue fell 4%, after a 2% decline in the second quarter reported in August. The company blamed advertisers’ reluctance to spend on television while German consumer spending stays weak, and lost audience in July, when rival channels carried the FIFA World Cup.
Nielsen’s gross figures, which are based on list prices before discounts, show the German TV advertising market down 1.8% to €10.93bn over nine months. ProSiebenSat.1’s gross TV advertising fell faster, by 4.7%, and its share of the market slipped to 33.4% from 34.4%. Its linear channels drew 19.8% of viewing among 20- to 59-year-olds, down 0.8 points, although the company says its share was almost unchanged outside the Winter Olympics and World Cup.
Online video advertising grew, but more slowly than the market. Gross revenue from ads shown in online video streams rose 19.3% to €769.7m, against 22.2% growth for the German market as a whole.
Joyn grows, production shrinks
Joyn, the group’s streaming service, is the one clear growth line in the entertainment business. Its average monthly video users rose 29.1% to 10.8 million over nine months and reached 11.8 million in the third quarter, while viewing time rose 18% to 46.2 billion minutes. In July ProSiebenSat.1 agreed with the public broadcaster ZDF to bring ZDF’s on-demand programmes onto Joyn. It is also building a common technical platform with MFE, which runs Mediaset in Italy and Spain, for its main European markets.
The production side moved the other way. Content revenue, which covers the group’s production and programme sales, fell to €94m from €114m over nine months and to €32m from €45m in the third quarter. The investor presentation attributes the fall mainly to lower production activity in the UK, without naming the companies or shows involved. On the buying side, ProSiebenSat.1 signed a cross-platform licensing deal with Paramount Global Content Licensing in September.
Lower costs, higher debt
The earnings gain came from spending less. Programming costs fell €126m to €588m, and €95m to €105m of that saving came from an accounting change: since January, most licence rights have been written down evenly over the licence term. Staff costs fell €135m to €433m, partly because last year’s figure carried €65m of restructuring charges and partly because of disposals.
Net financial debt rose to €1.54bn at the end of September from €1.34bn at the end of 2025, which the company put down to seasonal cash flow and severance payments. That is 3.4 times adjusted EBITDA for the past 12 months. ProSiebenSat.1 kept its other 2026 targets: a significant rise in EBITDA from €241m, a moderate fall in reported revenue from €3.68bn and stable net debt at the year end.
MFE took 75.61% of ProSiebenSat.1 through a takeover offer in 2025, and Marco Giordani, previously MFE’s chief financial officer, has been chief executive since October 2025. In the UK, ITV cut £25m from its fourth-quarter programme budget after its own advertising revenue fell. In Brazil, Globo and Disney have chosen to sell advertising on their streaming services together.
Our reading
Most of this year’s profit gain comes from an accounting change and last year’s job cuts, and neither repeats. Underneath is a TV advertising business that has lost an eighth of its revenue in nine months, with Joyn growing quickly from a far smaller base. The next test is the full-year report, which will show whether lower costs can keep absorbing an organic decline that widened from 2% to 4% between the second and third quarters.
For producers and distributors selling to German television, the signals point one way. The group is spending less on programmes, licensing selectively, and earning less from its own production arm. Two broadcasters in large European markets, ProSiebenSat.1 and ITV, have now reported falling advertising and lower programme spend in the same week.
Sources
- ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, Quarterly Statement for the Third Quarter of 2026 (12 November 2026)
- ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, Q3 2026 financials presentation (12 November 2026)
- Variety, Berlusconi Family’s ProSiebenSat.1 Earnings Surge on Cost Cuts as TV Advertising Slump Drags Revenue (12 November 2026)
- Advanced Television, ProSiebenSat.1 improves profitability despite revenue fall (12 November 2026)
- European Central Bank, euro foreign exchange reference rates (30 September 2026; USD 1.1355)