Central European Media Enterprises (CME) continued to perform strongly in the first half of this year and now claims to be in the best financial shape for a decade.
Its latest set of results show that the company had net revenues of $298,737,000 in H1, compared to $258,627,000 in the corresponding period in 2017. Its operating income was $66,787,000 ($56,177,000) while the net income, at $33,291,000, was almost double the $16,870,00 in H1 2017.
CME notes that its TV ad revenues increase by 16% at actual rates and 3% at constant rates in H1 2018. At the same time, carriage fees and subscription revenues rose by 15% at actual rates and 4% at constant rates.
CME no longer includes its operations in Croatia and Slovenia in its results, though the latter’s sale still has to receive regulatory approval.
Of its four remaining operations in CEE, the one in the Czech Republic remains the most lucrative and its net revenues in H1 were $112, 562,000, compared to $92,845,000 a year earlier.
Commenting on the results, Michael Del Nin, co-CEO, said: “Our financial performance in the second quarter was right in line with our expectations from three months ago. We also continue to expect that growth in profitability will accelerate sharply in the second half of 2018 as our businesses perform strongly across the board, leading to another full year of outstanding results and strong free cash flow generation. Combined with the significant progress that we continue to make on debt reduction, CME has reached the middle of the year in the best financial shape in a decade.”
Christoph Mainusch, co-CEO, added: “The results of the spring season confirm our status as market leaders and CME has long been setting high standards for content development. We have always invested in our core assets, and will continue to strengthen our programming line-up with new formats in addition to local favourites. We expect television will remain a cornerstone of building awareness for existing brands and new product launches, and we will continue to expand our offering with complementary assets to improve the reach we provide for advertisers and diversify our revenues.”