22-04-2010

MTG announce first quarter revenues up

By FNE Staff
    Modern Times Group (www.mtg.se), the Swedish based TV operator and owner of Viasat, announced a 6% rise in revenues, but a 13% decline in sales for its operations in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

    Sales in the three Baltic territories were down 13% year on year to SEK 84 million in the first quarter and down 4% at constant exchange rates. The decline
    reflected the continued but lower year on year deterioration in each of the local advertising markets.

    MTG operates free TV channels TV3 (www.tv3.ee, www.tv3.lv), 3+ (www.3plus.lv, www.3plus.ee), and TV6 (www.6tv.lv, www.tv6.ee) in Estonia and Lativa, and TV3 (www.tv3.lt) and TV6 (www.6tv.lt) in Lithuania.

    The channels increased their combined advertising market shares in Estonia and Lithuania year on year, and maintained a stable share in Latvia. Viasat enhanced its position as the leading free-TV broadcaster in the region by increasing its pan-Baltic commercial target audience share (15-49) to 38.7% (37.7%) year on year.

    Sales in the Czech Republic, where MTG operates Prima TV (www.iprima.cz) and Prima Cool, were down 9%, reflecting a local decline in the advertising market.

    In Bulgaria, where MTG operates Nova TV (www.novatv.bg), Diema (www.diema.bg), Diema 2, Diema Family, and M, sales were stable in the face of a declining national ad market.

    Viasat's other Emerging Market free-TV operations, including Viasat Hungary (www.viasat3.hu) and TV3 Slovenia (www.tv3.si) saw sales rise 4% year on year.

    Published in Region
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