Full-year ad revenue may increase by a range of 2 percent to 4 percent, Chief Financial Officer Marco Giordani told Bloomberg News in Milan. In the first nine months of 2014, Milan-based Mediaset’s sales fell 0.1 percent to 2.39 billion euros ($2.74 billion).
“Visibility remains short but we already have seen some positive signals for February sales and we are cautiously optimistic for the next months,” Giordani said. Companies traditionally spend more on ads between February and Easter, as well as in May and June, he said.
recession since World War II, TV ad spending fell 0.1 percent to 3.2 billion euros in the first 11 months of 2014, according to researcher Nielsen. In the same period the entire Italian ad market -- including newspapers, radio, magazines, cinema -- declined 2.6 percent to 5.63 billion euros.
Mediaset, which competes with Rupert Murdoch’s pay-TV provider Sky Italia, is cutting operating costs while boosting program spending to lure new customers to its pay-TV offering, Mediaset Premium. As part of its strategy to gain exclusive content, Mediaset a year ago beat out Sky Italia by bidding about 700 million euros for the rights to broadcast soccer’s UEFA Champions League for the 2015-2018 period.
Europe’s biggest broadcasters, from the British Broadcasting Corp to Sky Plc, are ramping up investment in TV programming and content to lure viewers and re-sell valuable international rights to the U.S. and other territories. The battle for sports rights among players like Sky and BT Group Plc is also greater than ever to lure and retain lucrative pay-TV subscribers.
GroupM, the media-buying arm of the world’s largest advertising company, WPP Plc, in December lowered its global forecast for 2014 advertising to 3.9 percent growth, from a earlier projection of 4.5 percent growth. Advertising is now expected to have totaled $513 billion last year, according to GroupM.
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