ProSiebenSat.1 Media Aktie

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our Q2 and H1 2026 Results Conference Call of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE. This conference is being recorded. Today's call is hosted by Ms. Birte Stein. Please go ahead.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to ProSiebenSat1's Investor and Analyst Q2 and H1 2026 Results Conference Call. Today's call will be hosted by our CEO, Marco Giordani, and our CFO, Bob Rajan. Marco will start with a performance overview and key transformation milestones. Bob will then provide you with a deeper dive into our financial performance. Going forward, Marco will take over again and present the operational performance and share the outlook for the current financial year, which we have confirmed today. Following the presentation, we will open the floor for a Q&A session.

I now hand over to Marco.

Thank you. Thank you, and thank you all for joining this call. I will take you through, let's say, some slides and then hand over to Bob for the financial highlights. First of all, I would like to underline immediately that our transformation is delivering results, and then you will see the details in the P&L. Revenue in the first half was in line with the expectation. Digital and Smart revenue grew by almost 6%, and that's clearly a combination of joint performance and also other activities performance. Our EBITDA grew significantly by EUR 152 million in the first half 2026 versus first half 2025. That's clearly mainly driven by cost discipline and focus on savings and efficiency.

Our debt was fully under control. At the June end, the debt level was EUR 1.467 billion. And in terms of ratio and leverage, it was 3.2x EBITDA, exactly in the middle of our range target that is between 3x and 3.5x. And lastly, we will talk that later. Our outlook for the full year result remains unchanged. Then I will take you through, let's say, the main milestone we achieved in the first half 2026. I mean, first of all, we deliver on our target of simplifying the portfolio structure. Bob will tell you more about that. But clearly, we achieved several disposals. The group now is simpler. As you know, we have segmented the group in 2 main areas, the Entertainment and the Commerce & Dating that it's also, let's say, granting a simplification of the management work, and it's also giving more accountability to the organization.

We have set new performance indicator. The main industrial one is the Total Video Reach. We will talk about that later on. As you can remember, we have a large Executive Board to Luca Poloni. Clearly, that is taking to the Board -- to the Executive Board tech, AI and digital kind of expertise, exactly where we are targeting to. So, we are now set for the future with all the capability and all the know-how in the Executive Board. You probably remember that we also changed the organization. Now we have an organization set for where we want to go in terms of future that has been live since March 2026. And clearly, we had some spot empty at that time that now has been covered.

So we are fully equipped for the future months and the full year, let's say, performance. In terms of managing our debt, we have, let's say, repaid a part of our bridge financing as foreseen by our agreement with the financing banks. And lastly, clearly, we are going on and probably also increase the speed on getting synergies out of the larger group we are part of. We are going to have the same streaming platform within the 6 country in first half 2026 that will give not only savings larger than expected, but also better experience and better performance versus our U.S. content providers.

All in all, 4, let's say, pillars. Certainly, we are now faster in executing things. Cost discipline is our main priority, and it's also shown by our results, given the fact that our profit clearly increased a lot due to that. We have a simplified governance structure and an organization that is allowing us and all the team to be more focused on the strategic priority. Let me now hand over to Bob for a detailed look at our financials, and I will be back after him.

Great. Thank you very much, Marco, and good morning to everyone on the call. Marco already alluded to some of these comments, but let's take a little bit of a closer look at the results for the second quarter and the first half of the year. So, if we look at the overall results, as Marco stated, we operated in a challenging market and economic environment during the first 6 months of the year. As you'll see, group revenues amounted to EUR 768 million in the second quarter and approximately EUR 1.5 billion in the first half of the year. While this was, for the most part, in line with our expectations, it represented a year-on-year decline of 9% in both the second quarter and the first half of the year.

As we've repeatedly said, the main reason for this was a drop in revenues in the TV advertising business, where overall spending has simply fallen. As you know, there is a close correlation between the macroeconomic environment and the company's advertising spending, and the industry is facing structural changes and challenges. In addition, if we all remember, in the first half of this year, we had 2 large sporting events, notably the Winter Olympics in February and the FIFA World Cup, which just ended a couple of weeks ago. Portfolio changes have been made since the beginning of this year, and this also impacted our revenue development directly. One particular visible example on this is the sale of Studio 71 U.S. in the second quarter, which affected our group advertising revenue reporting line.

Organically, taking into account the portfolio and the currency effects -- so on a like-for-like basis, our revenues declined only by 2% compared with the prior year, both in the first half and in the second quarter. And despite this decline in revenues, our group EBITDA increased significantly by EUR 102 million in the second quarter and by EUR 152 million in the first half. This improvement has brought EBITDA back into positive territory following negative results in both Q2 and the first half of 2025. As we've indicated, the development for this EBITDA improvement was primarily driven by a substantial reduction in costs with a large focus on programming expenses, in particular, these were decreased in comparison to prior year. I'll come back to the development of programming expenses in a moment.

If you also note, personnel expenses were also significantly lower in the previous year, declining by EUR 91 million in Q2 and by EUR 117 million in the first half of the year. The prior year number, remember, was impacted by reorganization costs in the amount of EUR 68 million that were recognized from an accounting basis in the second quarter of 2025. The strong improvement in EBITDA has also led to a significantly better EBIT performance, supported by lower depreciation and amortization expenses and partly resulting from company disposals, EBIT returned to a positive level after losses in both the second quarter and the first half of the positive year -- of previous year. The positive free cash flow before M&A of EUR 27 million in the second quarter of 2026 reflects positive EBITDA development as well as lower programming and other CapEx, primarily driven by timing and project phasing effects.

That's an overall picture of our general financial performance. And now let's look at the individual segments. If we move to the next slide with regards to focusing on the Entertainment segment, and remember, entertainment is our core business, the Entertainment segment revenues were down by 4% in the second quarter and by 6% in the first half of the year. This decline was entirely organic and was primarily driven by weaker advertising revenues. As you'll see, our entertainment advertising revenues decreased by 8% in the second quarter and by 9% in the first half of the year. This once again reflects this industry-wide reduction in TV advertising spending with advertisers remaining cautious in our current environment. The reduction is driven by both cyclical and structural factors.

As you know, the advertising market traditionally reacts early to economic developments. At the same time, we continue to see advertising budgets shift from traditional television towards digital media, and I'll say something about our digital performance in a minute or so. But also remember, taking into account from the overall perspective is the sporting event, which I mentioned earlier. This definitely impacted viewing patterns and advertising demand during this most recent reporting period. So, while the TV advertising revenues declined, our digital and smart advertising businesses continued to grow. Revenues increased by 3% in the second quarter and by 6% in the first half, primarily due to the continued growth of Joyn's AVOD business, supported by revenue contributions from external platforms as well as our podcast activities.

Looking at the other revenue streams on this slide, we can see that distribution revenues grew by a mid-single-digit percentage rate in both the second quarter and the first half of the year, further strengthening the resilience of this revenue stream. Content revenue increased in the second quarter, but remained below the prior year level for H1 due to low production activity in the U.K. during the first quarter. Other revenues delivered strong growth, supported, among other factors, by the continued expansion of joint subscription business. So that's a snapshot on our top line.

Let's now take a turn and look at the profitability. Despite this decline that I earlier mentioned in our high-margin advertising revenues, the profitability of our entertainment business improved substantially. EBITDA increased to EUR 81 million in the second quarter and EUR 115 million in the first half compared with negative EBITDA in the respective prior year periods. Improvement was primarily driven by a significant reduction in costs. Total costs fell by EUR 132 million in the second quarter and by EUR 182 million in the first half. Programming expenses also went down significantly. As part of ProSiebenSat.1's strategic shift towards becoming a multi-platform provider in response to changing user behavior and the composition of our programming assets, ProSiebenSat.1 has adjusted its amortization policy for significant parts of its programming assets.

As a result, since January 1, 2026, significant parts of the licensing rights have been amortized on a straight-line basis over the respective license term, resulting in a lower amortization expense. In addition, our programming expenses once again have benefited from our continued focus on using and monetizing content efficiently across various platforms, particularly in the sporting event-shaped environment that included the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. Programming expenses in the second quarter amounted to EUR 195 million, representing a year-on-year decrease of EUR 60 million. For the first 6 months, programming expenses declined by EUR 93 million to EUR 404 million. In the first half of 2026, approximately EUR 65 million to EUR 75 million, and thus, the majority of this decline was attributable to the change in the amortization methodology, which I mentioned earlier.

Lastly, the impacts of last year's restructuring projects have also contributed to the significant increase in earnings. If we move to the next slide to talk about our Commerce & Dating segment, I'll say a few words about its performance. As you will see, reported revenues declined by 16% in the second quarter, reaching EUR 269 million and by 14% in the first half, reaching EUR 591 million. However, once again, on an organic basis, revenues increased by 3% in Q2 and by 5% in H1, benefiting from strong growth of Flaconi, which more than offset the decline in some of the other segments, primarily the dating and video revenues. Our key growth driver remained our digital platform and commerce business with revenues increasing by 13% in the second quarter and 3% in the first half of 2026.

Performance was, as we said, primarily driven by the continued strong momentum of Flaconi within our Beauty & Lifestyle vertical. And I'll say a few more words about Flaconi later in this presentation. Revenues of the consumer advice vertical declined, and this is due to portfolio effects following the sale of Floyt and CamperDays this year and the disposal of Verivox last year. As you will all remember from earlier, we have divested 6 businesses in the first 6 months of this year, primarily from the Commerce & Dating segment, and this is why we always refer to organic growth versus the absolute change from year-to-year.

Just following up on that significant decline in advertising and other revenues was largely related to portfolio changes, as I mentioned, including the sale of Studio71 U.S. as well as disposal of wetter.com, esome and Kairion. All of these have contributed to revenues in the prior year reporting period to various degrees. If we turn to Dating & Video, we'll see that the revenues have decreased by 29% in the second quarter and by 27% in the first half. This business continues to operate in a very challenging environment, characterized by weak consumer spending, not only in Germany and the United States, but as well as intense competition overall globally in the entire online dating market. In particular, social dating revenues remained significantly below prior year levels.

If we move to profitability, segment EBITDA in Q2 was slightly negative at minus EUR 2 million, and this was primarily due to deconsolidation effects related to the portfolio changes, which had a high single-digit million euro impact. For the first half, however, EBITDA improved substantially increasing by EUR 27 million to EUR 8 million. The earnings development should be viewed in the context of company sales with the previous year's figures being particularly influenced by the EUR 34 million loss on the sale of Verivox. That now gives you a relatively good comprehensive look at our performances by segment. I'll now continue to look at our net financial debt and our debt maturity profile.

If we look at the slide with the strap line regarding financial leverage, we'll see that our net financial debt amounted to EUR 1.467 million as of June 30, 2026. This represents a reduction of EUR 73 million compared to June 30, 2025. This development reflects our positive free cash flow from operations, which more than offset exceptional cash expenses as well as cash inflows from M&A activity. Marco already indicated this, but it's worth stressing again that our financial leverage ratio was at 3.2x at the end of the second quarter and well within our target range of 3x to 3.5x set for the end of 2026. On the right-hand side of this slide, you will see the details of our current debt maturity portfolio. Just as a reminder, our financing package includes a term loan with a nominal amount of EUR 1.4 billion and a bridge facility with a nominal amount of EUR 225 million as well as a revolving credit facility of EUR 400 million that has not been drawn in the first half of the year.

In January 2026, the term loan was drawn down by an additional EUR 200 million to EUR 1.4 billion and is just fully drawn down. Also in January 2026, the bridge facility with a nominal value of EUR 300 million was fully drawn. The drawdowns totaling EUR 500 million were used for the repayment of promissory notes as described below. Furthermore, promissory notes in the amount of EUR 147 million were repaid using cash and cash equivalents. In connection with the proceeds from the disposals that we mentioned earlier, we have used certain amounts of these proceeds to pay down our debt, primarily from the sales of wetter.com and Studio71 U.S., we have reduced our bridge facility by approximately EUR 75 million, and therefore, the outstanding balance on the bridge facility amounts to EUR 225 million.

You may recall that MFE's acquisition of the majority of voting rights triggered a change of control last year, entitling the creditors to an early termination. As a result, ProSiebenSat.1 repaid promissory notes amounting to EUR 647 million in January 2026, with the remaining EUR 53 million maturing between 2026 and 2029. At this point, then I'd like to end my part of the presentation and hand back over to Marco.

Thank you, Bob. And now I will try to take you through some of the main KPI in terms of operational activity we carried out in the first half of 2026. First of all, looking at the macros, clearly, the first part of 2026 didn't help us. As you can imagine, and as you know, I mean, macros GDP numbers and consumer climate clearly didn't perform as expected. And in that sense, we can say that we had a pretty large headwind in the first half of 2026. Having said that, let's say, the research houses and the media agency are still forecasting a pretty strong second half of 2026 as far as Germany advertising market is concerned. Clearly, these are just forecast.

Visibility remains very short and so -- and the uncertainty on the market is pretty large. But having said that, many of the Germany agency are still very positive on the second part of 2026. Moving to audience of linear activities. You know that -- and Bob also alluded to it, we had too many sports events that affected our audience performance in the first half of 2026. I mean if you exclude them at the end of the day, our linear audience has been stable on 2025. Clearly, we use the 2 periods in which the main sports event was on air, on the public state TV to look at margins. And so cost management in terms of grid was really very strong in that period. But in terms of audience, I think we were pretty where we would like to be. And clearly, the second half not affected by sports event will be -- there will be much more focus on investment in content.

Just giving a little bit of a light of few entertainment and content milestone. A couple of weeks ago, we recently, let's say, announced the launch of a targeted channel called SAT.2. That's clearly not only a linear channel, it's a complete experience as far as targeted audience that is not only including linear but also including digital targeted audience. That's part of our strategy to take all our content in a very effective way to our audience. And the focus will be clearly on Germany fiction & factual cross-platform availability and the key target is a target that clearly investors -- advertising investors are looking for. And we are sure that SAT.2 will expand our linear net reach as far as the channel point of view, but also will also help us in the joint growth.

Then the channel and the join windows will be targeted to women age 50 plus. And it's an attractive audience of more than 18 million people. And as I said before, we are sure that, that will allow us to offer to our investor -- advertising investor a better and targeted audience. As far as content is concerned, clearly, our flagship format continued to deliver strong audience and performance across linear TV and also streaming. Market share performing above channel average and higher than previous season or quarter. And I'm repeating it, we are very happy about the cross-platform performance.

Some detailed content example, one is clearly our flagship of Germany's Next Top Model 2026. It's the 21st season in H1, and it remains one of our strongest entertainment brands. It was very successful, and we had 32 million rich linear plus join in H1. So very, very strong, 3 million unique users and 4 million followers on social media. Another, let's say, great example is The Race. It's a joint original. So, it was mainly designed to serve the streaming people. It's a strong example of how we can combine talent -- creator talent and social reach and premium production. We got in the first half 2026, 4.2 million total video reach, strong performance on social and very young targeted group, evolving this strategy with over 15 format plan with cross-platform strategy.

Looking ahead, our content pipeline for the upcoming months is pretty rich with a strong sports lineup. We will show 7 World Championship within the next 18 months. That means more than 2,500 hours of live sports. That's clearly something that was a little bit different from the past, giving to our viewer to all platforms a different, let's say, content experience. That will combine with a balanced mix of successful classics and new program with great potential.

Then moving to Joint performance in the first half. Joint continued to grow with a 7% growth in revenue, both from advertising and subscription, significant growth in user and viewing time, just a few numbers and KPI. We had a plus 21% versus 2025 in monthly video user, and we have a 26% higher numbers in terms of view time. And that's clearly the example of how the platform is growing and it is successfully reaching the new, let's say, streaming targeted audience. We also launched podcaster on Joyn as a new feature and certainly new, let's say, feature will come out with a new platform we will talk about later.

Let's say, again, another very important event happened a couple of weeks ago was the ZDF partnership. That's the way we see the future. I mean we are trying to reach agreement with all the traditional media operators in Germany, trying to join forces against platforms and global players. And we clearly announced a couple of weeks ago the new partnership with ZDF that will bring all the ZDF on-demand content to Joyn. Joyn will be clearly an open platform that brings together attractive content for all the audiences. I repeat this partnership is key for the future, and we will open also to other operators, and we will try to offer the largest, let's say, content portfolio to all our viewers without really moving from one platform to the other. That's the main, let's say, target for the joint people, and we see partnership like a win-win situation for viewers, content providers and for all the Germany media system.

I was mentioning before about the new streaming platform. That's an announcement we have, let's say, published a couple of weeks ago as well. Together with our parent company, we will build a shared streaming platform for all the 6 country MFE is operating in Europe. The technology will be a common foundation that enables greater scalability, efficiency and innovation. In terms of efficiency, I have to say that the real project and the execution of the project actually granted more savings than expected on paper before starting working on it. At the same time, local brands and local content remain the same. That will be a focus that all the country will have to dedicate in the future. Platform will be, let's say, a commodity throughout the group, but content will remain the reason for which viewers will look for it -- for us. Joyn will clearly receive a new rollout in the first half next year. And the Germany viewers and users will benefit also for newer feature.

Lastly, let's move to Flaconi, Bob mentioned it. The performance in terms of financial has been outstanding in the first half 2026. Revenue went up by 23%, and that's significantly better performed than the Germany premium online beauty market. And they reach -- Flaconi reached more than EUR 300 million external revenue in the first half 2026. In that numbers, the international shares has been more than 20% with 60% revenue growth from last year. In terms of relevance of Flaconi, the share is more than 40% and the customer satisfaction, it's very high at a record high in the first half 2026, confirming the management capability to pursue growth in that business.

Lastly, I would like to confirm the outlook for 2026. We continue to expect a moderate decline in group revenue adjusted for currency and portfolio effect. However, given the apparent decline in TV advertising market in the first half of 2026, we now expect revenue for the full year in Entertainment segment to decrease slightly compared to the previous year. Revenue in Commerce & Dating segment are expected to offset this development. So, in terms of group level, we anticipate a slight organic growth for the group revenue. Growth perspective in the Germany economy remain limited and visibility in the cyclicality sensitive advertising market is low and remain uncertain. We remain focused on cost discipline and working and living in a pretty volatile market. We will be very, very flexible in spending money in the second half of 2026.

We expect significant year-on-year EBITDA growth for the full year 2026, supported by consistent cost discipline and further cost reduction and more focused portfolio. Target range for leverage remain unchanged with a range between 3x and 3.5x with net financial debt expected to remain stable compared to the 2025 year-end. Our path remains clear, growth through increased profitability. To sum up, we have created greater focus, accountability and discipline across the group. The progress achieved in the first half of the year shows that our transformation is delivering results. We are building a leaner, more focused and stronger ProSiebenSat.1 for the long term. Thank you for your attention, and I hand over for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] It appears that we have no questions at this point of time. Our first question today comes from Naizer of Deutsche Bank.

I guess my question is on Flaconi. After the strong growth that you've been able to report, could you maybe remind us if this 20% growth could continue in Q3 and Q4? Or at some point, is there a steady-state growth that we should think about for Flaconi? And what would the ultimate sort of margin target be for this business going forward? And second, when it comes to advertising, is there anything specific we need to be mindful of in H2? I guess one of the questions that we're getting also is Q2 advertising was so strong on players that did have the World Cup that there might have been a situation where spending was brought forward from Q4. And given how important Q4 is for broadcasters such as yourself, is that something to be worried about? Or in the conversations you're having, do you feel that Q4 could be like business as usual kind of quarter? Some color there would be great.

Thank you for your question. It's Bob. I'll start with the Flaconi question and then the second question, I'll pass it to Marco. So no, we're very happy, as you can see, with the performance from Flaconi to date and compared to prior year and even in year with that growth. We suspect and we believe that the Flaconi growth will continue in the low double-digit ranges from a top line perspective. That's what we're hoping for. They have a great presence in the market, executing a very good strategy. And so, we have very good high hopes for the continued confidence that they will continue to grow in this direction. Yes. I'll pass the second question to Marco.

Thank you, Bob. No, I mean, usually, the World Cup effect is enlarging the market. So all in all, we are not expecting the last part of the year being affected by the fact that some investors could spend money on the World Cup and so we will then reduce the investment on the second half. That's what happened traditionally when this big sports event happens. Having said that, the visibility remains very short, and so it's very hard to be practical and very, let's say, precise on the second half. What I can tell you is that clearly, July still affected by World Cup was not very different from June, while August is back on being, let's say, better in terms of performance and is a little bit close to April and May performance.

As far as September, honestly, we don't have visibility. And as I said before, we remain very flexible and being ready to adapt the grid in function of the top line projection. But having said that, the other, let's say, comment I would like to make is that last year, last quarter was decent, if you want. So, in terms of comparison, we are going to have an easier comparison in the last part of the year than we had in the first part of the year. But having said that, that's just a very mathematical, let's say, comment as far as the rest, we have to wait and see.

[Operator Instructions] It appears that there are no further questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to your host for any additional or closing remarks.

So it seems we have no further questions, but the Investor Relations team is available for any follow-up questions, of course, you might have. Thanks, everyone, and have a great day.

That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

A very warm welcome from my side to our annual press conference from ProSiebenSat. I welcome next to me our CEO, Marco Jordani; and our CFO, Bob Rajan. Great that you're here.

Today, to give you a quick overview, I think that's pretty logic that we will go through the year results of 2025 and then give a strategic direction for the future and also the outlook. And for us, it's really important that we also have time for your Q&A session. As you hear me speak English, I think it's obvious that today, we will do everything in English just to make sure that everyone has the same language. For all the journalists at the Q&A session, you can ask your questions in English or in German. I can translate, that is no problem. And yes, maybe just one other thing. We will record the annual press conference and put it on our website then more or less in the afternoon. So with this said, I hand over to Marco. Let's get started.

Thank you, Stefanie, and thank you to all that are attending to the press conference. Thank you for taking the time. As Stefanie said, we are going to, let's say, present to you a little bit of what happened in 2025, even if, as you know, we joined late October. So clearly, a big part of the year has been, let's say, not under our control. And then we will dedicate more time about what we are currently doing and where we are going. As far as a sort of a brief summary of what we are going to see, Bob will take you through the main financial highlights of the 2025 results. But in 2 words, we were just hitting the guidance we gave out in January. So nothing has been really different from what we forecasted from that time.

What I would like to underline is that already in 2025, in the last part of 2025, we clearly focus ourselves on changing the company. The main changes were clearly appointing the new CEO for XO, so the sales house. Clearly, the future of ProSiebenSat.1 will rely a lot on growth and revenue. So that was the first action we undertook. Then secondly, we clearly create structure and action in order to build a strong cash discipline. Bob will take you through that in a minute. And lastly, we try to set the company organization in a way that the future will allow us to grow to create value. Having said that, I think the remaining part of my presentation will be after Bob presentation, and I will dedicate myself to you and to your question, trying to answer to where ProSiebenSat.1 is going to and where the growth will come from. I just hand over to Bob. Thank you for that.

Great. Thank you very much, Marco. It's my first press call, so obviously excited to be on the stage here with Marco and Stephanie. I also joined, as Marco said, at the end of October. And so we'll walk you through some of the highlights from FY '25. As you can see and Marco alluded to, revenue on an absolute basis was slightly under in comparison to FY '24, 6% but taking into account portfolio effects and currency effects, minus 2%. Now a lot has been made in the press, not only from us, but from the -- an industry trend with regards to group advertising. We'll talk a little bit about that in a couple of minutes.

But you'll see that advertising in general, there was a downward trend. This was even exaggerated a little bit more in the fourth quarter, as you can see, minus 10% comparing the fourth quarter of 2025 to the fourth quarter of 2024 and 8% on a full year basis. Adjusted EBITDA, as Marco said, was in line with what we had already provided, the EUR 403 million. This is down, obviously, from the prior year, as you can see. And in quarter 4, there was a little bit of a pronounced impact once again because of the advertising market and the challenges that it was posing upon ProSiebenSat.1 and other players as well. Adjusted operating free cash flow had the same trend, as you can see. Adjusted net income, the drop was not as drastic as the others due to a couple of tax effects that we were able to work as a positive benefit. Before I move on, just as an overall statement, when you look at the overall conglomerate of ProSiebenSat.1 approximately 2/3 of the revenue relates to entertainment. The other 1/3 relates to non-entertainment or what we will refer to as commerce and dating. So going forward in 2026, we will have 2 segments, the Entertainment segment and then the Commerce and Dating segment. So if we just move to the next slide, I'll talk a little bit about the overall climate that we see ourselves in and how that is affecting us going forward.

If we look at the left-hand side of the chart here, we will see that there is obviously, there's been some pressure on GDP, not only in Germany, quite a bit in Germany, but across Europe.If you take that into account, looking at GDP growth the last couple of years, which has been effectively flat or slightly above, the same trend is occurring in the first half if we read all the economic reports for 2026 with a potential slight uptick in the second half of 2026. Unfortunately, that is compounded by a number of effects such as the Ukraine war, which is ongoing. Some of the challenges that are ongoing in the Middle East, which are driving up, obviously, oil prices and whatnot.

And also the geopolitical climate, I think we would all agree, is not as stable and is quite volatile at the moment. So putting that all together provides a challenging perspective for the short term, maybe the medium term. If we look at the right-hand side, this is what we already referred to earlier in the previous slide. The graph here has been indexed to 2019, looking at the advertising market. Obviously, a negative trend for the past 2 to 3 years that has been occurring. But if you look at the last in 2025, you'll see that 18 percentage point delta, which is quite significant. So there is, I would say, challenging investment appetite in the market. And once again, it's an industry trend that we are all going through. However, we've taken a lot of protocols and whatnot here since Marco and I have come on board with the whole leadership team. There's a lot of cash discipline, there's cost discipline. We've been figuring out how we can make sure that we take proper funds to be able to invest into investments that make sense for us going forward in 2026.

So there's a number of things that have come into place. And while the challenges will still exist I think we're well positioned to be able to address those challenges that may come about. One thing I talked about is we have the entertainment sector. And then obviously, we have what we're referring to is the commerce and dating segment. But all of you would have noticed in 2025 that there were a number of M&A transactions that the company -- that ProSiebenSat.1 was part of. For these trends -- or 3 of these transactions that we have labeled here where before Marco and I were on board, Verivox, which has been very much detailed in the press as long as -- along with the other 2 transactions. Since we've been on board, you would have seen in February the vectr.com transaction was closed. Last week, you would have seen or you would have heard -- read about a signing with regards to Kairion and Eson where we were able to engage in a successful transaction for that -- those 2 businesses and the transaction is expected to close in April 2026.

This morning, you would have hopefully also seen a press release that came out earlier this morning that we were able to engage in the transaction to divest Fluid and camper days, and that transaction will close in April 2026. Looking at all of these transactions, they've generated circa about EUR 300 million in proceeds. And I'll come I'll come back to a couple of priorities that we're looking when we try to generate proceeds. But let me just clarify a little bit about the M&A activity that's been going on recently, and Marco will also allude to this as well. We have no script or anything about how we're looking at divesting businesses as quickly as possible as soon as possible. We look to extract the value out of our conglomerate out of our portfolio companies. And as long as we can continue and we believe that there is value to come to ProSiebenSat.1 and obviously, its shareholders, continue to work with these portfolio companies, work with these management teams to do that. When we get to a point where we believe that we have optimized the value for what we can do, then we will start to engage or look into potential M&A transactions with potential parties that may have an interest in such assets. So with the proceeds that we've got here, what we're trying to do is use these proceeds, not only Marco alluded to at the beginning to try to deleverage, okay? That's very important for us, but also look at taking these funds and investing them appropriately.

And when it comes to entertainment, if there's things that we can do with regards to content and whatnot and increase our reach, we will end up using those proceeds for that. The next slide just continues on with that theme of using proceeds that we've had to try to deleverage the company. On the left-hand side, you can see that since 2019, overall debt has reduced by close to EUR 1 billion, EUR 902 million to be specific. At the same time, ProSiebenSat.1 has worked hard to reward its shareholders with $326 million in dividends since 2019. That trend is something that we want to continue to do going forward as we transform ProSiebenSat.1. On the right-hand side, just a quick snapshot on our debt maturity profile. Most of you would have read in Q3 of last year, actually, when Marco and I sort of came on board, ProSiebenSat.1 in engaged into a refinancing transaction. A couple of things that were key to this. One is the overall quantum of debt has been already reduced slightly. And that was intentional because we wanted to make sure we optimize and use leverage appropriately. As you will see from the debt maturity profile there, we have a 5-year term loan expiring in 2030. We have an RCF that also expires in 2030 that is undrawn in the amount of EUR 400 million. And we have a bridge facility that was for 12 months with a 12-month extension and you can see that the term loan, we're trying to put regular amortizations in there every 6 months of EUR 70 million. There are covenants attached to this refinancing package. Marco will speak towards that towards the end but this is a refinancing package that allows us flexibility and the ability to use our funds appropriately for investment and to be able to, hopefully, with transactions or generating excess cash flow to pay down our outstanding debt.

The last thing I'd like to talk about, obviously, is with regards to our dividend proposal that we will propose at the AGM at the end of May of this year. obviously, making a dividend, you have to take into account the economic situation, the performance of the company and various other factors. This is in line obviously with last year's dividend where it was $0.05, we will propose at the AGM this year proposed dividend per share also of $0.05. And with that, that sort of concludes my presentation here on the financial numbers. I will pass it back to Marco to take us through the next section.

Thank you, Bob. I think now we can come back to the presentation and just leave a little bit the past and looking at the future. I will start, let's say, to address the point where are we going? I mean something has already been said. But the reality is that we are certainly leaving the concept of a diversified group. We were pursuing till last year, and we are much more focusing on media and media powerhouse. Clearly, our intention is to become the leading entertainment player in the DACH region. And certainly, we will be helped in that journey by the fact that we are part of a larger group.

Clearly, MFE, we consider MFE power size as a sort of multiplier of our strategy. That's all clearly based on a pretty strong financial discipline because we need to invest, we need to grow. But clearly, that has to be managed and done in the right way. Having said that, I will try to take you through, let's say, our 5 priority. We are every day currently managing. Starting from content, clearly, that's the first and the most important element in our day life without content, clearly, it's hard to make media. And so that's where we stand and where we're focusing. We will go through a different way of approaching multiplatform distribution. I will try to take you through in the following pages. Clearly, monetization, it's another area where we think we have a different speed than in the past because we need a right monetization, monetization that is more aligned with the present trends in the advertising market. We will talk a little bit about Tech and AI.

As you can imagine, these are topics that you cannot keep in these days. And then, as I said, we will try to give you a little bit of outlook regarding 2026 and, let's say, always focus on cash discipline and cash flow attention. Let's start with content ease. This is a slide that clearly is not giving you anything more than you know already, but it's important to underline the fact that we are targeting very high premium quality brand. and very popular, let's say, brand. That's part of our main strategy. Clearly, a lot of brands are already in that area. We will talk about that, but some other will come. And the investment we were mentioning before will be targeted to that. We need to have strong brand, popular brand, engaging brand, we need to differentiate ourselves from, let's say, the cold content that typically the platform are just, let's say, showing and delivering to our viewership. Another point I would like to underline this on the right-hand side of the chart, we are not really forgetting the fact that we are coming from a tradition and a culture of linear TV content that are probably more addressed to more adult viewership, but we need to address also the fact that our young target audience require a different kind of sorry telling a different kind of version our content.

And so we will take care of us also about that because that's our aim to be very large, very popular in addressing all the target group. What I just said, it is a little bit explained here. yes, you have just clearly a lot of numbers, but I mean I'm trying to give you the view on that. We have many brands that are very popular but they are not very popular only on linear TV. They are also very popular on other platforms that are a little bit different from the linear TV channel we are used to. I'm certainly talking about joint that is our owned and operated OTT platform through different business model being Abbott or SVOD. But I'm also talking about -- and I'm referring to the right-hand side of the chart to platform that are not owned and operated by us, but they are very popular for the target we were mentioning before. This platform can be called YouTube or TikTok or whatever you want to see it. And as you can see, we are already able to drive a lot of consumption in this platform. And this is also a good way to promote, engage and make the brand growing also in target age where, frankly, we are not so strong in our linear TV kind of offer. One that we have generated good brands and popular brands, then it's up to us to make these brands working only -- not only on TV and on JOYN on our owned and operated platform but also somewhere else.

In Galileo, it's probably the best example of what we are targeting. Galileo started as a very popular TV shows as you know, then we move it through the digital platform that we operate, so join with different business model funded by advertising or subscription based, let's say, business model. And that's a little bit normal and pretty ordinary. We're just putting our content in a different platform, then we move a little bit away from that being very successful on out. As you can see here, Galileo as more than 3.3 million subscribers on YouTube. Again, this is the example of the popularity of the brand, the way in which the brand is engaging target gauge and the way also we can monetize people that are not watching TV anymore, just because I mean, they have different habits and they are simply younger and more technological oriented. But having said that, we cannot forget about all the other platform that is surrounding us let's call them social media in a very broad way. These are a platform where we are present strongly and where we need to be present, not only for promotion, but also to remind the people that they can find content also somewhere else.

Then there is, let's say, a formal way of, let's say, exploiting the brand, that is the licensing, the gain, the printing and events that are also very important to make all the system profitable and being able to push forward with new investment. I mentioned before the multi-platform. Again, that's probably a little bit new in the sense that clearly, the media world is changing and the big change came from the fact that the U.S. giant or new platform came on the market and changing not only the [indiscernible] EBIT, but also a little bit the business model. we are going to leave the linear only kind of priority. We are approaching this new world in a multichannel way. And saying that, we are also changing a little bit. Our main objective has been as publisher. We are not really targeting the linear TV audience share. We are not targeting what the content is performing, how the content is performing on Joyn. We are looking in a more 360-degree way how we are able to generate global video reach. We are a little bit neutral on where the people is watching our content, a little bit in the sense that then, I mean, we have also to look at how the profitability of the different channel are. But I mean, in principle, we are more targeting the fact that our content has to be watched more and more every day. And that's -- it's important because it's giving us our content, the possibilities to be popular, to engage and to be reminded in the viewers house.

And that slide is also representing the fact that starting from the left bottom side, clearly, linear channel are important will be important because these are unique element in our offer. But clearly, we know that the TV consumption is declining, probably will decline. But in any case, our content needs to be popular starting from linear TV and then this popularity should be also transferred on what we have said before, are our own and operated distribution channel, digital distribution channels that are listed there, clearly Joyn is the most popular and most famous one, but I mean there are others. That is giving us the possibility to not lose the people that is not watching TV anymore, we take, let's say, our content where the people are willing to watch and that's clearly the biggest part of our objective. It was also in the past. But then we move away a little bit from our own channel, and we go in other channels let's say, exploitation. The first one is clearly the partners one. You see the brand there. These are partners that are helping us in take our content to the viewer. And then moving a little bit away from the heart of our business, such a network I mentioned in it and also international SME platform.

On the right-hand side of the slide, you have some number. These are our let's say, polar star numbers going forward, what has been defined as total video reach numbers. And these are the 2025 average number we got last year. So we are talking about a percentage of population, this means that 77% of the German population watched our content last year. And in terms of converting the percentage number, we are talking about 61 million people. Again, this is an important number because that number is currently larger than the YouTube or the U.S. platform numbers. That's a value that in our opinion, we will try to keep that advantage we will try to keep and possibly even enlarging it. And why that's important because this is clearly giving us the possibility to monetize better our reach. Clearly, we are a little bit weaker if we monetize our linear TV channel only because everybody, all the advertiser will know that the linear consumption is declining. So it's a way to sell an asset that frankly is not so requested by the market. While reach, it's a unique and scarce resources on the advertising market. Advertising needs reach and we are providing reach. You have numbers there that shows how strong is our multichannel approach and now important will be for our sales house, 7.1 Media in the moment in which they meet customer and media agencies selling a value and a product that is not so available on the market.

So in a few words, we are moving away from spot-based TV advertising to a total reach monetization. And that's the key point of our strategy, building good content, distributing in the best and most efficient way the content and then monetize them. I mentioned before about, let's say, the role of MFE in all of that. I mean let's start to say that we are 100% focused on where we are alone. And on the left-hand side of the chart, you see where we think we can really be better than anybody else. And it's clearly all the strong client relationship, the German and the DACH client relationship. We know them better than anybody else. We certainly have a proven DACH expertise in terms of, let's say, market-specific, content-specific and we are -- or, let's say, our sales house organization, so 7.1 Media organization is certainly well reputated in terms of reliable and high-quality campaign delivery. And again, we know the customer probably better than anybody else because we are working in our market. Then moving to the right-hand part of the chart, you see a little bit of the translation of what multiplier means in our terms.

Clearly, we know that the market is going to be more and more European. There are many multinationals that are focusing advertising investment in one place in Europe. So it is clearly important to be there together with our, let's say, parent or an even a sister company to present, let's say, a total European possibility in terms of campaign format, KPIs, prices. That's in our opinion, a way to avoid to lose customer because if you have a customer that is centralized, presenting a regional offer, is not only weak. I mean it means also that you can lose the customer because you are not offering what they are looking for. So that's the multiplication that being part of a larger group can help us in being more performing, more effective and being also a little bit more modern in terms of customer perception. And as far as I can say, this is something that is very well appreciated by media agency and customer because they see an answer to their request that probably local media cannot offer. And that's technique also to another very important element of the future that is Tech & AI. I think, I mean, you cannot talk about anything today without talking about Tech & AI, and I want to share with you we are now structured and what we think it will be the best approach to take that issue.

Clearly, we will try to be as much as possible cutting edge in the technology and to do that, frankly, size matter. I mean no one can really be good if they invest less or if they are just in one country. And so being part in a larger group can help us, for instance, in a tech infrastructure to be -- to spend more on a global way by sharing the cost because clearly, nobody can afford a big investment if they can only fund it in a local way. So AdTech infrastructure will be unified that eliminate redundancy and that will all pass in being more ready to meet the customer needs. Data and analytics, again, this is a size game, you can understand easily that the more data you have, the better you are, the more you can be, let's say, performing in analytics, the better you are, and again, sharing efforts sharing investment. It's also giving us the possibility to be better, both in terms of data and analytics. OTT infrastructure. Again, we are talking about something that people is not appreciating. So nobody will choose Netflix [indiscernible] RTLs just because one platform is technologically better than the other.

Content are much more important. There, we need to be let's say, on the same level than the other at spending less. And so again, we are targeting a structure of an infrastructure where we can share costs and being best a bit better in performing and better in executing and better in providing experience to our viewers. Procurement, that's a little bit more easy to understand. Clearly, you can understand that, let's say, combining volume, you can get better pricing and better negotiation power. So in all these areas, so the share cost will impact in terms of economy of scale faster market rollout and certainly more modern, let's say, approach versus a market that is going to be more and more Pan-European. What will remain localized by definition, programming and content, nobody knows how to produce German content better than us. We will go on. Our people taking care about that are great. Our, let's say, performance, it's everywhere, let's say, and we can really go on in pushing with local, let's say, strong format local diversity and local also peculiarity, all related to creative development.

So new format, new format for targeted audience like the young has to be very localized because everything is related to custom habits and peculiarity that are local. And so we cannot really, let's say, negotiate on that. We will be very local in that respect. The cultural position I already said that we think that the world will be polarized by -- in 2 main categories: the international content and very local one. We are playing the local game. So the cultural position will be crucial because if you are not close to your view, we ship, then your popularity can go away. So we will be different from the platform. We will be more and more local and we will be more and more live and we will be more and more closer to our views. And again, as far as the German or DACH advertising relationship, that's clearly something we need to keep it localized because that's the way in which the market is acting. That's probably a slide that will help also to answer to some of the questions that you may have, and you can also ask afterwards.

Bob explained what we have done with the -- what we call the noncore asset. Right after the moment we joined, we immediately start reviewing all the portfolio of companies proceed and a times was running. And immediately, we allocated them to what is our focus, so entertainment and what is not. So here, we are talking about what has nothing to do with entertainment. And in that respect, I mean, all the decision has been taken in the past and we will be taken in the future is exactly what Bob said. We will look at a specific company. We were looking -- we will look at the performance, the management, the marketing position. And every time we will decide whether it is better to stay to push, to invest, like for Flaconi that it's, in our opinion, a great example of a company that needs to grow, and we can help them to grow, and that will stay in our portfolio of activity also in the future and other companies where, frankly, we cannot add anything else or add anything more. And in that respect, other solution will be taken. In any case, Flaconi is performing very well. Flaconi has an international plan in terms of expansion. We can support it because we are part of a European, let's say, group. And so that's -- it's another element for which an will be part of our portfolio of activity also in the future. And we are sure that in terms of value, we can generate a lot of value out of it.

Let's try to summarize a little bit what we are trying to achieve with all I explained to you. As I said, we will go on in investing in content. Without investing in content, clearly, the future will not be so bright. We need to keep going in that direction. The main objective of this investment will not be the linear audience only, but will be the total video reach. That is a little bit different from the past. We are not really, let's say, producing content for Joyn or for Satin or for ProSiebenSat.1. We have, let's say, investing in content because we need to generate a total reach performance, a KPI that is the one that I showed you before. The reason for which we are doing it is because we think that that's the best way to monetize the content. So without having a large total video reach approach. Without that, it's very hard to monetize and to fund the content. So it's crucial to be effective in distributing the content and effectively and promoting the content in effective in, let's say, targeting people that are not watching linear TV anymore, everything done in a way that the financial discipline will take us the resources to go on and invest in. Without forgetting what Bob was saying about deleveraging and dividend because that's part of every company, let's say, objective. Clearly, we need a strong balance sheet, and we need to reward our shareholders.

Then let's come to the outlook. I mean, clearly, as you know, we are just out from the analyst investor and analyst presentation and clearly, that's the main chart for them, and I believe it's important also to share with you. Bob already mentioned about the volatility and the uncertainty we are suffering. Clearly, giving an outlook on revenue in these days, it's not easy also because the visibility is very poor, and it is hard to make projections. But having said that, we are in any case, targeting a slight growth in top line. That's important to remind, clearly, that's an outlook that we are providing now. But honestly, we'll be a little bit, let's say, affected but what is going to happen outside our world, but we will manage any kind of scenario we will face. The most important KPI we are targeting is the EBITDA. We are leaving away the adjusted EBITDA kind of KPI. We are looking about the reported EBITDA. That is the only EBITDA we know. And in that respect, we think that there will be a significant increase versus last year, mainly driven by cost efficiency and also by some decision in terms of operating model, I was trying to explain to you. In that respect, I can already anticipate, because I give you also to the financial market, that currently, we are targeting more than EUR 130 million operating cost savings during the year, and that's clearly the result of the cost discipline we were mentioning.

So cost discipline is not just a theoretical concept. It's an everyday work. And the result is, as I told you, at least EUR 130 million in the entertainment area of cost savings. In terms of financial debt, we are targeting a similar level of debt than last year while the financial leverage will run from 3x to 3.5x in also coherent with our covenants that was mentioned. Maybe a few words about the first quarter because we are very close to the end of it. I believe you have followed what [indiscernible] said a couple of weeks ago. We clearly shared the view on the market. The market was not really great. But moving to our performance in this market, what we can tell you is that our entertainment revenue in March was declining less than what was in the first 2 months. So as a sort of improving, let's say, market condition and what I can anticipate is that April looks even better, close to last year numbers. And that's, again, a good sign. Clearly, April is not tomorrow. But I mean, at least the first time it's also showing a great, let's say, perception and also forecast. As far as the EBITDA is concerned, first quarter, we will see an increase in it. Clearly, even if we are going to have a weak top line in entertainment, as I mentioned and as Artie said, we will increase our profitability because cost savings are already there. And so that's, I think, the best result we can grant let's say, to our shareholders.

Just to close, just summarizing a little bit. It was probably too long, but I think it's important to summarize a little bit again. First point, focus on entertainment, means German-speaking region means strong local content, broad reach and multi-platform approach, maximizing total video reach. We will leave a little bit sector performance and KPI. That's how our polars are. We need to maximize that because through that, we can monetize our content at best. Technology data and AI will be the base of our future. So we will invest and we will also use them to transform the company, to transform ProSiebenSat.1 in a modern company. All what I said a repeating it, portfolio valuation, it's an ongoing, let's say, activity. There is no precooked decision. We are just acting in a very rational way, financially-oriented way, and we will decide what to do every week and every month. And lastly, as I said, nothing can be done without a strong financial discipline. We know that we need to invest. We know that the future it's made by new content, new format, new ideas and without financial discipline, cash control, we cannot afford to do it. So that's what I have to say, Stefanie, so thank you for the time, and thank you also to the team. And I hand over to Stefanie for the Q&A session.

Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Marco, for this. Then let's jump into the Q&A session. Everyone who is in the team's call, but please just raise your hand and ask your question. I think it's always nice if you do it by yourself. If you want to do it in German, I said before, I can easily translate it. That's no problem. And -- or you can just post it into the chat. And with this, I would say let's wait for the first question.

Yes. I have a very short question on one subject. You expect the debt to be stable instead of being reduced, which I would have expected? And why is that? Can you elaborate on that? And is the financial leverage goal of to that has been -- that has been stated in the past. Have you given that up? Or will you return to that?

I can start, and then Marco, please add on. So I think, Ken, you have to take a couple of things into account here with regards to overall, we still have a couple of special projects that drive the cash flow. The big one being our new campus, which has -- so -- you have to take all that into account. The new campus being the large number. And then we have a couple, obviously, still some expenses. We have some consulting spend small, but it's still there and whatnot. If you normalize those types of expenses and cash outs that will come, we would expect our operational cash flow to be at the high double-digit number for 2026.

So that's what we're doing. But on an overall basis of free cash flow, it's relatively stable, but driven by a couple of these exceptional items, and that is why our net debt as of right now is looking to be relatively stable for the year 2 naturally, as Marco and I both indicated, where we have opportunities to reduce our leverage, we will do that.

If you can add, Bob, to say that, and I don't want to, let's say, undervalue what we did in the last quarter last year. because clearly, I don't know if you follow, but I mean last quarter, last year, we were very strong in free cash generation. And typically, you can tend to say, okay, that was a one-off. It was not. So in a sense, keeping the same level of debt means also that what we did last year was not just -- sorry to say, window dressing, but was real, so to say. So all the elements that Bob was saying is true. But I mean, please consider also what we did in the last quarter last year, that was already pretty evident, so to say.

That's a great point. Adding to your second question on the leverage ratio. I think what we indicated as guidance there was 3% to 3.5% is what we are hoping for the year. I'm not too sure what happened in the past or whatever, but I mean our guidance is 3% to 3.5%. That will be in line with our current credit documentation. And if you do the numbers, remember now the leverage covenant is also based on an adjusted EBITDA, just to be very clear about that, okay? So it's an adjusted EBITDA over the net indebtedness. But we aim for the 3 to 3.5% and everything that's -- we'll manage everything there to make sure that we maintain that covenant.

The next question is from Klaus Lower from Waters.

I have a question. You were talking about cost discipline and cost cutting. Does that include the job cutting also? Or can you exclude job cutting as the company already had quite some in the latest past? And one portfolio question also. Flaconi, you did mention somewhat. There's still round home and Marco grew. I mean, are those -- is that -- do you consider that core business? Or is that sooner or later also to go out? And you have not mentioned at all, if I can remember correctly, Parship MeatGroup, which is big one somewhat. So do you consider that also core business? Or what do you intend to do with that?

I would take maybe the first part I mean, I think that we need to be more efficient, that I think we all know. And I believe that is also something you well understand being part of the same large media, let's say, sector. So we cannot really surviving just looking at the past. So our objective is to create efficiency everywhere. This doesn't mean that people is not important to us. And I prefer to say that it's better to have the same people that make more than to make the same with less people. So that's what we are targeting. So we are not really focusing on any social plan or any kind of reduction. We are looking for efficiency.

Efficiency means a lot of things. where clearly, we need to produce more with the same people or we need to spend less somewhere else. So it's a combination of factor where, frankly, our top priority is not firing people, I have to tell you. And the EUR 130 million, let's say, savings I was targeting, it's really a mix of everything. But again, I can repeat it, we are not targeting any social plan. ProSiebenSat.1 sometimes did it in the past. Other competitors are doing now. That's part of the life. But I mean, currently, in our plan, we don't have such, let's say, priority. If I may say something on noncore assets. Clearly, we have a long list of companies. So I don't know if we have time to dedicate to all of them. And as I said, I can repeat it, it's not a [indiscernible] decision. So you were mentioning Parship. Parship is again something we are not, let's say, in the condition to sell now. I mean, they may be in the future better different. Other, let's say, brands that has been mentioned to you by you, clearly, are different. But maybe, Bob, you can be a little more precise about Markan Around Yes, yes, yes.

I mean -- so first of all, it's a good question. I reiterate what Marco said, we really are looking at weekly, monthly, daily, looking at the performance of all these portfolio companies. I did mention that we have -- we're going to a 2-segment reporting structure going forward. We have entertainment, and we have commerce and dating. I would say, generally, it's about 99.9%, very clear about which assets sits in what. As an example, around home sits in the commerce and dating segment right now. Mark Guru does not sit in the commerce and dating segment.

So for us, once again, we are just looking once again to optimize value and Parship sits in the commerce and dating segment as well, but Mark already alluded to that as well. So we'll just continue our process. It's very financially driven, to be very clear, Marco indicated that. So where we think there's not a value or a financial benefit to benefit ProSiebenSat and its shareholders. We will then think about is there an alternative course of action for that portfolio company.

Good. Then who else would like to raise a question. Anaves Kempa. Please go ahead.

Hello. I hope you can hear me. A question regarding the total video because I think that this is very interesting. I'm asking myself, how will you be comparable to your competitors if you are now working with totally different KPIs here?

I mean, yes, I can understand. The comparison will be on linear audience. That's the easiest way because it's a KPI we always had in the last, I don't know, 40 years. But I have to say that when you are mentioning competitor, we see it a little bit different because RTL is a strong competitor, but unfortunately, I have to say there are many other competitors. And that competitors just name it one, YouTube, is you cannot compare ourselves already. I mean you don't know exactly how we're strong. Are we stronger? Are we weaker?And that's if you want also a problem for advertisers because if you put yourself in advertiser shoes, when you have to evaluate campaigns on YouTube and then you have to decide if it is better to go on joint plus ProSieben or joint Plus, podcast or whatever, you have this kind of difficulties because YouTube is not providing a currency, as we said, that is comparable to the one that we are using in TV.

But certainly, we are in the position to provide to our investors a sort of return on the campaign that is based on KPI that they know. Then maybe it would be difficult for them to compare our campaign with the RTL 1 or with the YouTube, but probably media agency can help them in evaluating what I'm sure of is that advertising are looking for that because they look for reach, they look for total campaign reach. They're not looking at what you are getting out of the dinner only because then you are only focusing on a specific target and you are not clearly looking at the German population. So yes, it will be a little bit more difficult, but it is already. So unfortunately, it's not really something we can skip on. But we will try to, let's say, report to our investors, to our advertiser in the best way and in the most transparent way. Starting from a currency, the linear currency that is certainly more transparent and more third party than the 1 that the big platform are using them.

So I think that we are starting from a better point than the YouTube and the Facebook of this world. But clearly, there will be a little bit of more activity in aligning KPIs and providing the best report of each campaign.

Good. Then I'll wait for another question. At the moment, nobody is raising questions.

Then I would say, if you have a question over the rest of the day, then please, I'm always here to help and also Katherine Schneider or Martin Kunter. So just come to us when you have more questions. Thank you, again, you to, for the presentation and the Q&A. And thank you all for participating, and have a nice rest of the day.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our full year 2025 Results Conference Call of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE. This conference is being recorded.

Today's call is hosted by Mr. Dirk Voigtländer. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ProSiebenSat.1 Investor and Analyst Conference Call on the occasion of our full year 2025 results published today.

The call will be hosted by our CEO, Marco Giordani; and our CFO, Bob Rajan. Marco will begin with an overview of the key developments in 2025. Bob will then take you through the group's financial performance and present our dividend proposal for the past financial year. After that, Marco will return to discuss ProSiebenSat.1's new strategic direction and share the outlook for 2026. Following the presentation, we will open the floor for your questions.

Before we start, allow me a brief personal note. Today's call marks my last one as IR at ProSiebenSat.1. As you might be aware of, I will be taking a new role within our parent company, MFE-MEDIAFOREUROPE, in which I will be responsible for digital innovation strategy, a position focused on accelerating digital transformation and advancing the use of latest technologies and AI across MFE's broadcasting companies, Mediaset, Mediaset España and ProSiebenSat.1.

Going forward, my wonderful colleagues from the IR team will remain at your disposal for any questions or discussions related to ProSiebenSat.1. I have greatly valued our collaboration over the years and sincerely look forward continuing our exchange and hopefully to seeing many of you again at future conferences.

With that, I'm pleased to hand over to Marco.

Thank you, Dirk. It's a shame to lose you and in a so important position, but I'm very pleased that you will go on in collaborating with us and taking your contribution to the future of ProSieben and to the MFE group. So really thank you for what you did and good luck for the new job.

And good morning also from my side. As Dirk said, our presentation will be composed by 2 main parts. The first one will be regarding 2025 with Bob taking you through the main financial, and the second part where I will try to guide you on the future of ProSieben and exactly explain what we are doing.

Last year has been, let's say, a year that ended as forecasted with our communication at the beginning of January. And Bob will take you through that numbers. Maybe it's important to say that Bob and I joined ProSiebenSat.1 in October. And already in the last part of the year, we were able to, let's say, adopt some actions that, in our opinion, will be crucial for our future and our future growth. We, as you can remember, we structured a new organization in the sales house. Revenue will be crucial for the future, and that was the first action we took just for that purpose. We clearly started to fix the base and the foundation of ProSiebenSat.1 and trying to also put everything we could in terms of growth opportunity and project.

The last point we were immediately put in operation was a very strong and strict cash discipline. That are all actions that we undertook during the last part of the year that will be crucial for the future.

Looking at 2026, clearly, uncertainty and volatility will be part of our future in terms of top line, but we will focus on everything we can do by our own, that are shares, so shares of the market and also whatever we can do in terms of cost control and improved profitability and putting all we can for growing the business and growing the value of this company. That will be our priority.

Clearly, the shift on -- the shift of focus on entertainment will be another important element. We will speak about that later on. But I mean, we can say that in terms of outlook, we are expecting a 2026 where EBITDA will grow, and that will be our main focus even in a so volatile and uncertain period.

That's all for the first part of the presentation. I hand over to Bob, and I'll then take back afterwards. Thank you, Bob.

Great. Thank you, Marco. As Marco indicated, we, Marco and I both joined towards the end of October. My responsibilities here at ProSiebenSat.1 cover the finance, the compliance and risk areas, legal, procurement, real estate, M&A, and a bit more focus on one of the segments that we will -- we're going to refer to as the Commerce & Dating segments.

But let's talk about some of the results for FY '25. As Marco already alluded to, 2025 was a year of significant macroeconomic headwinds. You'll see from the revenue here for the full year of FY '25, we were slightly lower in comparison to the full year of FY '24. This was primarily in relation to a drop in challenges encompassed in the TV advertising business, where overall spending is down, and this is an industry trend that all players in the market are currently encompassing.

You'll see from an absolute numbers perspective, the change from year-to-year was minus 6%, but organically taking into account portfolio and currency effects, it's only about minus 2% in comparison to prior year. You'll see this is a little bit more exaggerated in the fourth quarter as the headwinds were even stronger in the fourth quarter compared to some of the rest of the year.

However, as Marco indicated, and we'll talk a little bit about this, we were able to take some measures with a cost discipline, focus on cash. And obviously, our digital streaming platform continued to show some good strength there with regards to AVoD and SVoD, and we were able to combat some of the drop in revenue overall.

If we look at the advertising, you can see that this was down, and this alludes to the point that we had indicated before that we are down minus 8% year-over-year. But once again, you'll see that the digital and smart streaming is relatively flat with regards to that.

Adjusted EBITDA is in line with the guidance that was provided earlier at EUR 403 million. This is down, but once again, in relation to the drop with regards to advertising revenues. Cash flow has also correspondingly -- adjusted operating free cash flow has obviously already declined in line with the adjusted EBITDA drop. You'll see adjusted net income, the drop is only about minus 9%, and that is due to some offsetting tax benefits that we were able to utilize.

So overall, from an overall perspective, you'll be able to see that there were challenging headwinds, but ProSiebenSat.1 was able to take certain measures to be able to mitigate these to a certain extent.

If we take a look a little bit closer and we dive into the segments, Marco will talk about this a little bit later, but we're also going to be focusing in 2026 on 2 segments: Entertainment, and then what we'll call Commerce & Dating. So if we just try to look at 2025, looking at the Entertainment revenues, you'll see that, once again, the trends are very apparent to what was already discussed. And you'll also -- you'll see that the advertising was obviously playing a big factor.

When you look at the overall ProSiebenSat.1 business, you'll see that on a revenue basis, approximately 2/3 of the revenue relates to the Entertainment segment and 1/3 relates to the Commerce & Dating. But you'll see here that there's some good performance in regards to Entertainment, and I think the -- we'll take some measures, and Marco will talk a little bit later in this call about what we plan to do to be able to stabilize our Entertainment and grow and transform our Entertainment business.

If we move on to set the scene a little bit for where we are right now. And this is quite interesting if you take a look at sort of the number of factors that are ongoing in the market right now. So if we look at the left-hand side, we can definitely see, and this is all over the news so this is not going to come as a surprise to anyone, that cumulative real GDP growth is definitely down across Europe and Germany, obviously, is taking quite a bit of the brunt of that. But we'll also see that in prior years, the growth was very, very negligible. And for the first half of 2026, all the economic forecasts indicate that this will also be challenging, and there might be a slight uptick in the second half.

Unfortunately, what compounds this effect is all the macroeconomic geopolitical effects that are ongoing in the world. As we all know, there's still the Ukraine war is ongoing. We have troubles in the Middle East, which are driving up oil prices. And all these factors combined together with the geopolitical uncertainty definitely do create some additional headwinds and challenges for 2026.

If we look at the right-hand side, we've already talked about this, but to show this from sort of a numbers perspective, you'll see the challenges that are happening in the advertising market. And you'll see that there's been a downward trend if you index this to 2019 for a number of -- for the past 3 to 4 years. Obviously, 2025, that delta being about 18 percentage points being quite significant.

So this, combined with the geopolitical environment, it does provide its challenges. These are industry-wide topics that all players in the market are facing. And we will do everything in -- that we're capable of doing and measures that we'll talk about later to be able to combat some of these types of things.

Okay. If we now just jump quickly now to the Commerce & Ventures segment. You'll see here from a revenue basis in comparison to FY '25 to '24, relatively stable, okay. And that includes that there were some -- there was a divestiture in the early part of 2025 with Verivox. There were a couple of other issues. We'll talk about that in a minute. But generally speaking, you'll see that this has been a relatively stable business. Adjusted EBITDA, slightly down, but able to be -- that was able to be mitigated. And we'll talk a little bit about some of the portfolio companies that sit within this Commerce & Ventures segment.

One thing to be very clear is, while we are looking at this, and Marco talked about the focus on Entertainment, Commerce & Ventures plays a significant role for our business going forward. There are a number of portfolio companies, and as part of our process, we regularly look at all the companies within this segment and determine whether or not ProSiebenSat.1 is able to maximize the value.

In certain cases where the value we feel is optimized, we will then think about other options for those businesses, such as an M&A activity or whatnot. In other instances, where we feel confident and we feel that there's more value to build and to utilize within the group, those businesses will remain part of this segment.

If we move to the next slide, this shows a little bit more detail on the adjusted EBITDA and shows some of the trends that are going within the specific, the Dating & Video segment. Now while on Flaconi's perspective, you'll see that there's good growth and penetration throughout the market there. Dating & Video overall has had its challenges in 2025. You'll see that the year-over-year revenues are down. There are challenges within that overall segment that are being experienced by all players in the market.

However, we've been able to -- there's a new management team in place for the last year, and we've been able to slowly bring that uptick and start to show some strong performance in the first couple of months of 2026. So we will continue to monitor this business as we do with all our portfolio companies.

On the next slide, I think this alludes to the point I just alluded to before. You would have seen that since the beginning of January 2025, ProSiebenSat.1 has been very active with regards to ensuring that it's bringing the most value of its various businesses within the conglomerate to its stakeholders.

As we talked about, there were a number of transactions that occurred in the early part of 2025. And in the latter part of 2025 and early part of 2026, you'll see at the bottom, there's been 3 transactions that have taken place since Marco and I came on board at the end of October. Wetter.com was closed in February 2026. Kairion and esome, you would have seen an announcement that a signing took place last week, closing hoping to happen in April. And just this morning, a press release was released with regards to Floyt and CamperDays, where we entered into a transaction with a purchaser, and we're also hoping to close that in the -- in April of 2026.

Notwithstanding all of that, you'll see at the bottom that we've been able to generate from these transactions circa about EUR 300 million. One of the things which Marco alluded to earlier and we'll talk about there is we are -- we do want to manage our debt. We do want to deleverage the company. So we will always look to extract the value from our assets and where required and where necessary and where it makes sense, we will use those proceeds to pay down our external debt. Having the leverage -- having being able to decrease our leverage and optimize our leverage will allow us to take funds and invest them appropriately into things that will help transform and grow ProSiebenSat.1.

With regards to our net debt development, what we can see here is, if we look at the end of 2024 and we look at 2025, you'll see that this goes in a little bit into the trend that Marco alluded to and I've talked about at the beginning. We have tried to start to change to focus on cash flow, optimize cash, and you'll see there that our overall net debt did decrease from minus EUR 1.5 billion to minus EUR 1.3 billion towards the end of 2025 based on, obviously, the asset sales that we talked about and additionally, a few other items with regards to some payments that have been made. And in general, we're just bringing a general stronger focus to cash and cost discipline.

If we move to the next slide, we talked about our net financial debt. I think one thing to very much reiterate the point here is you would have seen since 2019 that net financial debt has been significantly reduced, almost by EUR 1 billion, you'll see EUR 902 million. At the same time, we've been able to balance that and pay dividends in excess of EUR 300 million since 2019. So this is going to be what we will try to continue to do to deleverage the company, invest for the future. And obviously, we would like to make sure that we reward our stakeholders and our loyal shareholders going forward as well.

On the right-hand side, some of you will remember from the third quarter of last year that the company endured a refinancing process. Part of this refinancing was due to optimize and help the company transform and grow for the future. The total quantum of debt prior to the refinancing was reduced overall. And there's been a new package that's been put together. And you'll see there that we have a 5-year term loan. We have a bridge facility, and we also have an undrawn revolver that we haven't drawn on.

You'll see there's a 5-year term. The bridge facility has a 12-month plus 12-month duration, and we have an amortization of some annual payments of EUR 70 million each month. So we are trying to be very cost conscious here. There is a covenant attached to the refinancing, and we're being very cost conscious to make sure that we can drive down leverage and position the company for growth and transformation in the future.

To close here, we'd like to talk about the dividend that we will be proposing at the Annual General Meeting at the end of May. Obviously, when we make these types of decisions, we take into account the entire economic situation, our financial performance and a number of other factors. And what we will be proposing at the Annual General Meeting is a EUR 0.05 proposed dividend per share. As you'll see, this is in line with what was also occurred last year, and this is what we will be tabling at the Annual General Meeting in May.

So with that, I will now pass back to Marco Giordani, who will speak to strategy with regards to ProSiebenSat.1.

Thank you, Bob. I think that was very exhaustive and I think we have completed the first part of our presentation.

Let's now move from 2025 to 2026 and looking forward. We are now focusing on, let's say, transforming ProSiebenSat.1 from a diversified group. We were, until last year, to a focused media powerhouse. Our main aim is to become the leading entertainment player in the DACH region with strong relevance for audiences and partners. This require a clear focus and strong local brands and entertainment content with broad reach.

As you know, I mean, clearly, we are now part of a larger group, and we consider MFE as strong multiplier of that, that combine local strong market presence and benefit coming from Pan-European scale and cooperation. Bob has already mentioned, I think you have seen already the proof of it. Financial discipline will enable our growth. Strict cost management is the foundation for sustainable and profitable development. We need to invest in content and entertainment, and that's the main reason for which the foundation should be big and strong.

We will allocate capital strictly in function of our strategic goals and only where we see clear value creation potential. Overall, our strategy is guided by clarity, focus and long-term value creation.

Moving forward, I will try to take you through what we are now trying to focus on. These are now our 5 priorities. First, content. Clearly, that's the core of our strategy, investment in distinctive local and live entertainment content to drive reach and build a strong emotional connection with our viewers. Again, we will take -- I will take you through more detail going forward. But I mean, a multi-platform approach expand our total video reach.

And that, it's important for our monetization. Clearly, also, our monetization will be coherent with the multi-platform approach. Technology and AI will clearly be a big part of our future. We will use them as a sort of leverage for better efficiency and better effectiveness versus our viewer and our, let's say, partner.

Lastly, again, sorry to repeat it. The financial discipline will be part of our day life, because that's the only way in which we can build a great future.

So let's go through all of them one-by-one. Content. That's just a list of our main area of content, and I will not clearly bother you with the detail on that. But it's important that a few words will remain with you and because it's really part of our day life. Content should be live, local, engaging, should be premium, large, popular, that's all assessed to create reach, relevance and brand value. It's important to underline also the right-hand part of the chart. We are not really looking at what was part of our historical culture, but we are also enlarging it to what is needed now to, let's say, engage young target and also young audiences.

Moving to the rationale behind it. I mean, clearly, we don't see any more, the only linear part. We see all the content mainly focus on the total video reach that can run clearly from our linear channel to our digital platform, but can also go beyond that on third-party platform and even to social media.

This is just a list of our best content, our flagship format. These are the backbone of our rich strategy but will be just example of what the direction will be in the future. We will try to build other brands that will follow that kind of routes. You have on the bottom part of the chart a pretty long list of numbers that is just showing that total reach approach -- sorry, total reach approach will take us to a new concept of total reach and will also be possible for us to enlarge the linear reach to other digital mean and platform.

The main aim will be, again, to go beyond our own and operated platform and also using third-party distribution platform to enlarge the reach. The main start will be coming from linear, but all the rest will be assessed to create an ecosystem.

That's an example. What I was trying to explain, Galileo, Galileo started as a popular and very high, let's say, reach linear content and now it's clearly becoming a sort of ecosystem that goes beyond the linear TV, clearly goes on our own and operated platform with the AVoD and SVoD kind of business model. But it's a very large, let's say, in popular YouTube content with more than 3.3 million YouTube subscribers and it's also building a pretty large social media and web publishing kind of activity. Without forgetting that licensing, games and other, let's say, collateral brand exploitation, it's already giving a pretty important, let's say, result to our P&L.

That's an example we would like to follow. Other brands will try to follow Galileo, let's say, story. That's all, let's say, explained by -- they're willing to give to our advertiser a brand safety area and a high premium area that can differentiate their communication versus all the platform and all the social media.

I just mentioned before, the multi-platform kind of approach. Again, that's, I think, something we need to consider differently from the past. Clearly, we are coming from a world where our platform were clearly large viewed and all the population was clearly watching TV 20 years ago, but now the world is different. We need to combine the strength of our own platform, being them linear TV channel, but also our own and operated digital platform like Joyn. But we cannot forget that our audience, it's also working through other platforms and our brand should be present where our viewers are and not vice versa. So we need to take our content where the viewers are and try to expand our, let's say, reach not only to our platform but also to partners' platform.

Again, this slide shows a little bit what I meant. Starting from the bottom left part of this slide, you see our linear channels that are clearly the base of our reach. But clearly, following different trends than in the past, cannot stay alone and isolated as to be, let's say, enlarged through our own and digital platform. Clearly Joyn is biggest part of it, but other platform is also part of it.

We are, let's say, enlarging and strengthening the local partnership that are already existing, but I mean we try to enlarge them and also take other partners onboard to enlarge the reach. Clearly, social media will play an important role, not only in terms of branding promotion, but also in terms of economical exploitation. And clearly then international streaming player and more others will also be important.

The number you see in the middle of the page, it's clearly showing that we are talking about large numbers. So that's the average total video reach we had in 2025. So 77% of the total population and more than EUR 60 million -- sorry, 60 million, let's say, viewers. That's something on which we are going to focus. That's our main commercial KPI. Clearly, within all the area, we will also follow individual KPI, but that's our main goal. We are not really going to evaluate content investment only looking at a single platform. But I mean, we are going to look at the entire reach and the entire media reach.

Then moving, let's say, to another, let's say, explanation of what I meant, we can also, let's say, broaden revenue and also increasing relevance in the advertising market through that because clearly, our linear channel, it's also important, will remain important also in the future, clearly following the viewers' habit probably in a more declining phase, but that's not really something we are not prepared of. Because our own digital platform will compensate as much as possible the decline and the change of consumer and viewer habits.

Our local and international partner will give us, let's say, an additional weekly marketable ad impression, that's important, more than 50 million, let's say, impression. And clearly, social network will then enhance and enlarge as much as possible our branding and promotion activity. A unique multi-platform monetization will be our future, leaving, let's say, the spot-based TV advertising a little bit behind or part of this larger strategy.

Let's say, moving to monetization. That's clearly the base of everything. We are, let's say, following a multi-platform strategy mainly for increasing our monetization, let's say, power. That's a slide that is very important for us. It's showing how our investors, advertising investors are clearly moving. And clearly, our ambition is that we can offer them a larger range of, let's say, media in order to get the maximum reach for their campaign. That's something we can we see as a unique advantage, strategic advantage that is also position ourselves a little bit different from the platform. We can offer them a larger reach. We can offer them a brand safety area, and we can also offer them a better value for their, let's say, investment.

Clearly, monetization, it's an important element of the future of ProSiebenSat.1 and I believe of all the industry. Clearly, the transformation of our monetization is crucial. We are transforming our products, adding products. We are clearly using tech as much as possible to serve our, let's say, customer needs. Data and identity will be crucial as well and AI will enable us and our investors to get the best value out of their money. We see that in that area, we can really play a very important step forward in order to give more value and to grow also in the future, that will be more and more in a converging advertising market.

That gives me the chance to talk about a little bit the role of MFE and ProSiebenSat.1 in the future. We are clearly focusing ourselves in being very good in executing our local strength, but we know that the market is going also European where size matters. And we think that the combination of a local strength and a European scale can be the best, let's say, result for our future value and future growth.

We will focus, as I said, on strong client relationship, clearly, local, strong client relationship. We have a proven expertise in the DACH region. Clearly, we know the market better than anybody else. I mean, our premium commercial execution, I think, has been proved to be reliable and high quality, and we have a deep understanding of local consumer behavior.

Clearly, the multiplication effect of MFE will be everything we cannot really follow because of the size. We can have clearly part of a larger group that can have access to European multinational headquarter. We can offer together with the other MFE, let's say, country a Pan-European sales reach that again can be asked by some of the customer. We can -- and we will standardize tool both in data measurement and format and even price. And certainly the fact that we will go to align all the tech stack in order to be more than efficient and coherent in all the country will be relevant for having the best effect for ProSieben, but also exploiting, as I said, the European advantage of being part of a larger group that we didn't have in the past.

That's also giving the chance to say a little bit more about technology and AI. I mean, clearly, being part of a larger group, we need to focus on something that we can work on to extract value and to give also additional resources to invest in our business.

In the left part of the chart, you see where we think we can share cost and to get better outcome of our investment. I already mentioned the AdTech's infrastructure. We will try to unify as much as possible solution and technology, not only to serve better our customers, but also to get some synergies out of it.

Data and analytics hub will be a second point of important focus. That's not only a question of cost, it's also a question of the, let's say, cutting edge in terms of richness of data and also activation of data.

We will focus our efforts in terms of OTT infrastructure. We think that there, we can really extract value together with our, let's say, with the other country of the MFE Group. And also in the procurement, we can extract value in a more, let's say, a traditional and ordinary way. All of that clearly will give us economy of scale, faster market rollout and certainly better service for our investors, both in advertising and also in the company.

What will stay local? Clearly, content and programming will stay very local. We are the expert of the DACH region. We will not clearly give up anything on that.

In terms of creativity, we think that Europe will remain focused on diversity, on localized and diversified content. And so it's important that we stay very close to the DACH kind of audience as much as possible. That is also due to the cultural position. Every country will have differences in that respect, and we need to be diverse also to make a sort of differentiation offer in respect to the U.S. and big platform.

Clearly, as I said before, the relationship with local and DACH advertiser will be crucial as well. In that respect, we are expecting a faster execution because certainly, we will be simplified, the structure and the decision-making process, we will have lower structural costs and higher scalability, and that will help us improve our margin.

We have several times mentioned the cost discipline in our presentation. And I will take you through, let's say, some of these examples on that regarding the approach we are going to take with the non-core assets.

That slide reports a little bit the performance of Flaconi. Bob already mentioned, I mean, we are not really selling all the non-core assets just for a pre-cooked decision. Bob already, let's say, remember that we are continuously evaluating the portfolio and seeing whether we can extract value more and more.

And Flaconi is a clear example of something that, in our opinion, will remain in our portfolio because we think that we can add value, we can contribute the company to grow. And the result that is coming out is clearly very impressive. And I think that also 2026 will show good results in that respect.

And again, our view is that, this part of our activity should not be looked at only revenue and cost, we will be looked at EBITDA performance. We'll be looking at in terms of cash flow, we'll be looking in terms of also management. We need to have all these elements in place every time we look at the non-core asset.

Flaconi, as I said, it's a good story. I think we are well placed with good management, and we have a good strategy, and that will be something that will take us to retain the asset and make it growing in terms of value for the benefit of all our shareholders.

Then moving to, sort of, okay, a summary of what we mentioned several times during the presentation, a sort of translation of our, let's say, financial discipline. I mean the content, it's clearly our main focus. We will go on in investing in local and live content, and that's because we think we need emotional viewer connection. We need popular brands. We need really strong brands that will drive content consumption. The main aim, as I said before, is to increase and enlarge and keep the total video reach. We will try to keep stable or possibly even growing through a different and, let's say, more open and very effective multi-platform kind of approach.

Monetization will be crucial. We have said about that. We are building large video reach, because we think that, that's the best way to monetize all the content we are producing. Then clearly, with the operating cash flow discipline, we can really create strong resources to go on and invest in content. As Bob was saying, clearly, we cannot forget about our main aim to deleverage ProSiebenSat.1 and also to reward our shareholders with dividends. So that's the way we are going to, let's say, put in place our financial discipline in the next month and year.

Then moving to outlook. That's probably the most difficult slide to comment on because clearly, as Bob was saying, the world is very volatile and make projection now, it's very difficult. But I mean, we will focus ourselves on what we can control, and we will try to manage at best what, let's say, the market and the markets will give us.

Having said that, as I said before, the first KPI we will target is the total reach. We will try to keep our total reach stable and possibly grow. That's clearly not listed in this chart, but it is something I would like not to forget about.

Let's move into financial KPIs. We are targeting a slight decline of revenue that's something that is mainly driven by some portfolio decision we took. And -- but I mean, on a like-for-like basis, we are targeting a slight growth in that respect.

That's mainly true also for Entertainment. Entertainment revenue are expected to be stable year-on-year currently. Clearly, again, with a lot of uncertainty and a short visibility on the future. But that's our, let's say, first, let's say, outlook we see now. As far as the first quarter is concerned, what I can tell you is that March was materially better than the first 2 months, and April looks better than March. So for the time being, I think we are on track. We don't see any particular, let's say, element for reviewing our outlook. As I said, the first quarter will be, let's say, confirming our outlook for the full year.

In terms of EBITDA, reported EBITDA will significantly grow, and that's our main objective. That's clearly coming from strong cost discipline, as we mentioned several times. Just to give you some numbers, in terms of Entertainment, we are targeting more than EUR 130 million cost savings on reported EBITDA, and that's numbers that is clearly coherent for the time being with the outlook we have been mentioning before. We will be actively, let's say, working if something change on the top line to maintain our EBITDA target in line.

As far as net financial debt, we are forecasting a stable numbers at the last year level. And in terms of financial leverage, as I mentioned, the target will be to stay between 3x and 3.5x EBITDA.

So that's our main outlook and guideline for 2026. But let me, let's say, summarize a little bit what I try to, let's say, pass you during this presentation. Clearly, ProSiebenSat.1 will focus on Entertainment in the German-speaking region driven by strong local content, broad reach and multi-platform distribution approach. That will allow us, let's say, to maximize the total video reach. That's the base for monetizing the content across all the relevant platform and to maintain, let's say, a strong top line.

Technology, data and AI will drive effectiveness, efficiency, scalability and margins. We will have a clear focus on that in the coming months. The portfolio valuation will be, let's say, running, let's say, activity. And there will be a decision solely on financial merits. No other, let's say, strategic decision on that. And clearly, the financial discipline will be our main focus with strict cost control, cash generation and balance sheet strength.

That's all on my side. I think that now we will start the Q&A session. So thank you for your attention.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Annick Maas of Bernstein.

My first question was, you've been now at the top of ProSieben since October. You've highlighted what the strategy is going to be. Can you just tell us, were there -- what surprised you to the positive actually, as you actually saw a bit deeper into ProSieben now in the first few months?

The second question is around the EBITDA guidance. So you say you want to do EUR 100 million savings at the Entertainment level. So how should I read that? If the TV ad market is going to be flat, does that mean EBITDA is going to increase by EUR 100 million? And anything -- any TV advertising improvement comes then on top? Or if you could just be a bit more -- provide a bit more color around that.

And then I guess, on TV advertising, everyone knows it's soft at the start of the year, but can you maybe give us a bit more color there?

And then finally, I mean, Dating, I guess, has been tough, not only this year, but also the last year. You've mentioned that you had the new management and you see an uptick. Can you provide a bit more information about what that actually means?

Yes. Thank you for the question. I will take the first part, and then I'll hand over to Bob for Dating. There were many, I think, good surprise, frankly. But I mean, the first one I want to underline is the team professionalism. I think, I mean, all the people I found here is very professional, very open. And I think that's the best surprise I got. We are exchanging experience. We are trying to, let's say, decide for the best of ProSiebenSat.1 in a very open and very professional way. So if I can summarize, that's the best let's say, news I found. Probably it was also a little bit expected, but probably I found a better, let's say, situation that I thought. So that's for the first question.

The second question in terms of guidance, I'll try to be a little bit clearer. As I said, we are now targeting reported EBITDA, that's our base. Then in the comparison between 2026 and 2025, you have clearly some, let's say, non-recurring, let's say, adjustment that will be not present in 2026. So that will create clearly a great advantage in terms of reported EBITDA in 2026.

But in terms of like-for-like or in terms of really operating improvement, as I said, we will reduce the cost base by more than EUR 130 million in 2026 compared to 2025. That's clearly an advantage you will see in EBITDA depending on the top line, as you said. So just following your example, if the top line is flat, then the advantage of EBITDA will be EUR 130 million. If the top line will be higher, then clearly, the advantage will be higher. That's a simple math.

Moving then to TV advertising, as I said. The start of the year was not really so good. And we share the cautious stance of our competitor, RTL, that went out a couple of weeks ago as far as the first quarter in 2026. What I can add is that the trend is improving. So March is materially better in the first 2 months, that's something that already we can say. And the expectation for April, clearly, visibility is very short. But I mean, clearly, we see a large part of April already in our book. It's showing that April will be better than March. So saying that the trend is positive.

But I mean, clearly, April, it's a month that is a little bit far to be closed, and that's -- it's also confirming our guidance for the full year. As you know, we have a pretty large differences between quarters, and that's the reason for which we can confirm the guidance of a stable Entertainment revenue as far as 2026 is concerned.

Then I'll hand over to Bob.

Great. Thank you, Marco. So in regards to the question with regards to Dating. So first of all, for the first couple of months, what we can say is we're on track, both from a top line perspective and an EBITDA perspective. So I think that's the first sign. I just think when we look at operationally, we've got generally just more engagement than what we had in the past, which I think is also very positive.

If we dig a little bit deeper into Dating, we've stabilized the paying user base on a number of platforms. We've looked at pricing, we've looked at subscription strategies. We've tried to be a little bit more sharp penciled with the marketing mix and less heavily on brand spend. So if you take a look at all those things combined together and bringing the technology together and being a bit more smarter there, that's what I was referring to saying that we're starting to see a little bit more uptick. By no means are we out of the dark, just to be very clear. But I'd say the first couple of months are brighter based on those comments that I just made.

We will now take a question from Conor O'Shea of Kepler Cheuvreux.

Yes. Just a couple of follow-ups from my side. Just firstly, in relation to the EBITDA guidance for 2026. In the presentation slides, it mentioned EBITDA rather than adjusted EBITDA. Could you just maybe clarify that? Is that growth off a base that includes high restructuring costs? And maybe you could just give a sense of how much you expect restructuring costs to be in '26 versus '25?

Then second question just in terms of the disposals and it may relate to cash restructuring costs, I guess, in '26. But given the 3 disposals you've already announced. I understand that they are small, but expecting net debt to be flat year-on-year in '26 versus end '25 looks conservative. Could you explain why you expect no further reduction in debt in 2026, given the disposal plan?

So again, sorry, I mean clearly, we are now, let's say, targeting a different KPI from the past. Without, let's say, commenting on the past that I think it's a little bit worthless. We think that the reported EBITDA is the right KPI we should target in.

In the EBITDA, clearly, it's all included. So if any restructuring cost will be -- is in there, we think that that's the best way to look at the company. Adjusting EBITDA, frankly, looks a little bit not proper. I would like to stop it here. So we will guide you with the reported EBITDA going forward. Before leaving Bob to answer, what I would like to repeat on disposal, I mean, clearly, we already -- last quarter, last year, we went through all the portfolio of activity we had.

The first activity we carried out is, I mean, defining what was part of entertainment focus and what was not. And clearly, that was the first element in deciding what to do with the portfolio. With the non-entertainment focus activities and companies, then I can say that clearly, as you can imagine, there are companies like Flaconi, as I said, will be our future, let's say, support and growth.

There would be average companies that clearly have a market. And as you can imagine, there are also, let's say, companies where, I mean, the future in terms of cash flow and EBITDA will not be positive, and that's the reason for which it is better maybe to find a different owner. And that's the way in which you should look at what we did and what also we are going to do in the near future.

But maybe you, Bob, can elaborate a little bit more on that.

Yes. Sorry. So look, I think Marco talked about the guidance. Just another point. Our restructuring costs in 2025 were circa around EUR 70 million, just to keep that in mind.

The second question regarding the disposals, Conor, it's a good question. And I think you answered the question yourself actually when you posed the question. The divestitures that have been announced to date last week and this morning are very small and minor in quantum. And so at this point, we don't expect those to be making any type of significant impact with regards to our net debt.

And as far as the net debt, we did make some improvements already last year, you would have seen in the -- when we did our cash flow bridge. A lot of that happened in the last quarter -- in the last quarter of 2025. So given what we've talked about with regards to the volatility of the market and whatnot, we do need to make sure we're on top of cash. And that's why at this point, without any further portfolio changes or whatnot, we are aiming to be flat there.

I think one of the things we also have to remember from 2025, there was -- not only the restructuring payments, but in 2026, we have our new campus as well. So there are -- that project continues to continue. And there are cash outlays there as well with regards to that.

So in summary, the divestitures we've done to date are small, and therefore, they don't have a major impact financially from a net debt perspective. And then with regards to other things, we still have some payments with regards to our new campus and whatnot, and that's why the net debt figure is more or less flat for 2026.

Okay. So could I just check, at this stage, would you expect restructuring costs -- P&L restructuring costs to be higher in '26 than the EUR 70 million in '25?

No, they will be lower, Conor, sorry.

Lower, lower. Okay. Perfect. And then of the EUR 130 million reduction in the cost base that you announced, is that a run rate number? Or is it a P&L number for '26? And I think I'm right in saying, it was EUR 150 million or EUR 200 million target -- medium-term target previously announced. Is the EUR 130 million just Stage 1 and then there are further savings over, say, a 4-, 5-year period?

Okay. That's to say, the EUR 130 million is the 2026 P&L effect of the savings, it's not a run rate. Now as far as the EUR 200 million, maybe can you elaborate a little bit more? Because I mean, frankly, I don't know what you are referring to, sorry for that.

Okay. Maybe that was in the press. I don't know, I saw that number. Maybe that didn't come from your side. But...

But I mean, from ProSiebenSat.1, you mean or?

Yes.

Okay. Frankly, I don't...

So the EUR 130 million...

Maybe, Conor, this is Dirk speaking here. I think you might refer to the previous gross savings target on the basis of the adjusted EBITDA, which was in the EUR 100 million range. So I think the EUR 200 million is not a number we have communicated. But in any case, this year's savings first relate to the EBITDA. They take into account the, obviously, operating and underlying savings, but also have a certain element of reduced onetime expenses, which were related to restructuring and which have burdened both the Entertainment segment and the Commerce & Ventures segment.

Please also bear in mind, last year, there was also an impact from the deconsolidation of Verivox, which is also a minor part included in that number.

Okay. So there's not necessarily a sort of Phase 2, although if the EUR 130 million is a P&L savings for '26, perhaps on a run rate number, the number is higher and those savings will flow into '27 as well. Is that fair to think about it like that?

We will update you as soon as we have that number. For the time being, we have not...

It's already [indiscernible]

No, no, it is. It is. I can tell you, and it's not really so. There is a lot of work behind it. I guess you can imagine.

We will now take a question from Nizla Naizer of Deutsche Bank.

Great. I have three questions, if I may. The first is the reach-based approach that you are now referring to in the multi-platform strategy. Can you give us some color as to how receptive your advertising partners and agencies that you speak to already are on that approach? Or have you sort of reached out of them already in Germany to sort of see how receptive they are? Some color there would be great.

And second, the reported EBITDA versus adjusted EBITDA, what matters for the covenants that you mentioned and the leverage target that you've given us in the outlook slide, is that now referring to the reported EBITDA or netted over reported EBITDA as opposed to adjusted EBITDA? That clarification would be great.

And lastly, could you kind of remind us of the collective impact on revenue and EBITDA from the assets you've sold so far this year? Some color there would be great.

I will take the first part. I mean, clearly, we are moving to the total video reach just because we think that the customer or the advertisers are asking for. I think that clearly, the word now is dominated also by all the U.S. platforms that are, let's say, trying to sell, let's say, digital reach in a pretty, let's say, effective way. If you look at the, let's say, market numbers, including clearly the German one. We tend to stay a little bit away from that. We are, we think better placed because we can rely on linear reach that it is clearly something that already existed in the past, but it's still existing and will exist also in the future that it will make us a little bit more, let's say, a seller of a scarce resource because clearly, we are selling a reach that the digital cannot afford.

So we will try to sell the total video reach trying to be different from the U.S. big platform? That's the first comment I would like to make.

The second comment is that this is very well accepted by the market, because it's exactly the, let's say, the KPI they are looking for because they can really look for performance marketing with the digital platform. But I mean, it's important also for them to go on in, let's say, investing in branding and positioning and where the reach is more important than anything else. So we are creating, let's say, an element or a KPI that is a little bit scarce on the market. And it is our base for having a better relationship with our investor and media agency in order to provide them with exactly what they need today.

So if you want, it's a combined decision, looking at what the market is asking for and what we can provide to the market in order to better, let's say, monetize our content. So it's a combination of the two. But for the first, let's say, comment we received from advertiser and media agency, the expectation of that has been very, very, very good and very optimistic about the future.

Great. And just to answer the last question with regards to the minor asset sales we've done it. I'll reiterate again that they were -- they are small in nature. So taking into account deconsolidation by the end of April, we're talking circa about EUR 50 million from a revenue turnover perspective and an EBITDA perspective of about EUR 2 million. So as we talked about, they're negligible and small at this point.

And maybe the last part. I mean on EBITDA, I mean, clearly, we will report to our financing partner the adjusted EBITDA because our financing package is based on adjusted. But as I told you, that's part of our obligation we have with our financing partner, but it's not a KPI we are looking for in terms of managing the company going forward.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question today comes from Fabio Pavan of Mediobanca.

Thank you for taking my two questions. First one is for Marco. Given your experience in Italy and Spain, how much time do you think it will take for this journey in Germany to be done in terms of increasing this reach? And so for this to be reflected in the numbers? It's something you would expect to see gradually over time or maybe nothing for this year but maybe for '27?

And the second question is provided the guidance you made and shared with us on revenues and EBITDA, is there any comment you can share with us in terms of organic cash flow generation for this year?

Thank you, Fabio. I mean, all the countries are different. So it's very hard to, let's say, compare performance from one country to the other. I have to tell you that in Germany, ProSiebenSat.1, it's a little bit more advanced in terms of multi-platform approach. So all is related to the increase of reach coming from, to be practical, YouTube, podcast and other digital activity. I think that Germany is a little bit more advanced than Italy and Spain.

On the other hand, there are media that, for instance, in Italy, MFE runs like radio, that clearly ProSieben doesn't and probably will never. So I think that comparing to Italy probably will be almost impossible to reach the more than 90% reach that currently MFE has in Italy. But as far as Spain, for instance, I think Germany is already a little bit beyond that level.

So I don't think we need to -- so we don't have a blueprint to copy, let's say, here. We are trying to enlarge as much as possible the reach, because this is what the market is asking for without really looking at a target, a specific target that our country may have. Certainly, we are sharing experience. That's true. So we are trying to, let's say, take the best out of each country experience.

So for instance, I'll give you an example. ProSieben is largely better in podcast than Italy, Spain. We are trying to see whether we can export this kind of know-how and capability in the other countries. That's an example in terms of exporting from Germany to the rest of the MFE Group.

On the other hand, clearly, as I told you in terms of customer relationship and the way in which sales house are connected with the advertiser, probably Italy, it's a better place than the rest of the group. And so in that respect, the changes we have made in the sales house organization is also targeting a transfer of expertise from Italy to Germany.

So it's a mix of everything. I think that being part of a larger group is good for everyone. If we are able to align best practice throughout the countries, I think will be the best for everyone without having a specific and numeric KPIs for that.

Yes. And Fabio, to your other question, which I think is primarily, I think we've given the guidance on where we are on the revenues and EBITDA, and Marco alluded to that. With regards to cash flow, again, as we talked about, we're expecting cash flow to be relatively flat, obviously, not taking into account some of the extraordinary spends with regards to our new campus restructuring and other things. So if you excluded those effects, we would hope that we would have a very high double-digit number from a free cash flow perspective. So if you -- on an organic basis. But on a full basis where we've taken those extraordinary spendings, we are planning to be flat as we had indicated earlier.

Ladies and gentlemen, as there are -- I am sorry, operator.

My apologies. That concludes today's question-and-answer session. Mr. Voigtländer, at this time, I will turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much, operator. So as you mentioned, there are no further questions currently. So this concludes our conference call for today. As always, should you have any further questions, my colleagues in the IR team and myself will be happy to answer them. Thanks, everyone, and goodbye.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.