Métropole Télévision S.A. (MMT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
July 28, 2020
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
operatorWelcome to the presentation of the 2020 half year results of M6. I'd like to give the floor to Nicolás Tavernost, President of the Supervisory Board.
Nicolas de Tavernost
executiveGood afternoon to all. We have this -- the results of this half year, which has been very specific given the crisis we're going through. I'd like to make several remarks. First, we've been highly hit by sanitary, the health crisis that is not over. I will give you figures later on. Second thing, I'd like to say is that in the faces of this crisis, the group is very agile. All of the teams have been motivated, determined to ensure internal operations antennas and also be economically responsive to allow the group to try and go through this crisis as best as possible, which is not over, by the way. We were, therefore, able to catch up the majority of the advertising loss we've had during this period. This, in terms of figures, has had the consolidated sales for this half went down by EUR 157 million, EUR 557 million for the -- for the half year. Regarding operating expenses, we have reduced them by EUR 92 million as of middle of March, very quick decisions that have been taken that has allowed to restore 59% of the drop in revenue, not only for advertising, but also other operations. When you look into the details of this consolidated revenue that has lost 22%, the advertising revenue including Gulli, went down 27.7%, EUR 400 million, EUR 400.6 million versus EUR 440 million the year before. The other operating are EUR 3.1 million. The operating expenses went down by 16.2%, EUR 476.1 million that gives us a consolidated EBITDA of EUR 84.4 million versus EUR 148.3 million in the last year. The net income is EUR 42.7 million -- net profit EUR 42.7 million versus EUR 88.4 million for the same period last year, i.e., the half year 2019, which is a quite response reactive to major operations were carried out during the COVID, i.e., 1 operation, which is the merging of iGraal with Global Saving Group, that's a couponing group. In Germany, this couponing group, we've merged our iGraal activities with them. We have become shareholder in the new majority structure with what will allow iGraal to develop abroad. iGraal is an activity we had acquired, which does mainly cash back in France, and which would like to develop abroad. In the context of this disposal, we've catched -- cashed in EUR 35 million that have improved the group's liquidity. Therefore, after the merger, we have taken a share of 43% in the structure. Regarding the second operation is the Bedrock operation we've done with RTL group. Bedrock is a technical platform for OTT, i.e., streaming broadcasting of programs in OTT, and on Internet access provider networks. That was developed in the context of 6play in 2008. We've enlarged this platform and this activity to other customers, notably Salto, that will start next October 1. Notably a number of TVs in Belgium, Croatia, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands. Therefore, it is a platform that should be developed in France and abroad. Most of the people working on it are in Lyon. It's very important for us because about 80% of streaming platforms, doing AVOD, SVOD, 6play are common all activities, 20% are specific. The idea of sharing those expenditures with other European or French television is to have technical expenditures that are lower for a streaming activities while being at par with our international competitor. So we have put this activity within the corporation held by RTL Group. We've given them 50% and M6 that has kept 50%. And eventually, we might open to other competitors. The 2 operators lead to capital gain of EUR 119 million. The net profit of the group, therefore, is EUR 162.3 million, i.e., because of those 2 exceptional operations that means an 83.6% increase outside of those operations. The net profit has dropped by 51.5%, but I'd like to say the group is very responsive. That has concluded the first GSG operation because that involved German operators, French operators. We have closed that operation during this period with the Italian bank. Now if we go back into the detail of the activities. You know that TV is going through a period where the audience is going up because of lockdown, notably, but also this increase has continued. We're seeing an increase in TV audience despite the weather, if we compare with last year and if -- even though there's no sports on TV. What we call the IVT, individual viewing time, is 3 hours and 56 minutes, which means more -- 30 minutes more than last year and the coverage, the number of people watching TV, a daily coverage of 78%, i.e., an increase of 5 points versus H1 2019, which means we've had a strong increase in IVT. That is something very good for us because it shows the performance of the TV tools movie, cinema, live program, news like the one we've had. We have been very receptive, very responsive. What we can say is that today, in France, we talk about the platforms, that are serious competitors platforms only represent an average of 10% of time spent in front of the TV screen. Therefore, TV remains the dominant audio visual media, and it has accelerated this domination during the period. We have had also excellent performance within this good health of media because we've increased our performance, notably on 4+ and WRP audience shares, our commercial target with 22.5 versus 26.5. The second operator on this target regarding the 4+ 14.5% versus 13.2%. So very good performance in the Media, which, from the point of view of consumption is used, has behaved very well during the period. When you now look at M6, M6 remains -- keeps its power on brands, 3 million in the evening on the vital slot with audience share of 18%, stable on the commercial target. The major brands that have performed, you know them, notably Top Chef with its best-ever season. Notably on the commercial target, Cauchemar en cuisine. We have E=M6 29th most dynamic session, Pékin Express, a very strong brand [indiscernible] Capital with Julien Courbet, the best season in 11 years. You see that those old brands, we were able to make them continue. They are a very specific ingredient of the M6 channel. We're very happy to see that year after year, we're able to have them progress while renewing them. We have excellent dynamic in news. It's something that not everybody knows. We have record ratings at 745 and 1,245 excellent audience on targets. We're interested in under 50s. We've innovated also with [indiscernible]. There's been a very good image among youngsters. We're trying to conquer for TV Tous en cuisine, was a program during lockdown, very much noticed. We've done that live, which was not necessarily easy in access prime time. This is a program, we will have also back in September. Regarding DTT, we have Puissance TNT, which is the addition of audience of W9 and 6ter or 2 DTT channels. Here again, we have a very good performance since -- for W9, we have an audience share of 2.7%, 0.1% for 4+ and close to 4% for WRP, which means that we are second in DTT. Regarding 6ter, here again, we have a good audience that has allowed Passeport Sante to be the first commercial offer on DTT notably on -- for under 50s. In the brands, among the brands that are the success of those 2 channels, you have, of course, the access prime time brands, [indiscernible] that have been very famous with young people, notably with important audience on non TV screens or replay, which multiplies by 2, the audience to go over 1 million people in access for prime time. We also have a very important offer. We have 6ter magazines that were very well for family. It is a family channel, probably one of the most quickly developing channel. Finally, since last year, we have had Gulli. Gulli confirming their success, the favorite family channel. We have an offer for young people and children. And this is continuing now after lockdown. Regarding pay-TV, we have mainly 2 very important channels, Paris Première, a new record. First pay channels for upper social, professionals and Téva for -- first pay channel for WRP and they're performing very well, and they're broadcasted mainly on FM. The audience of 6play, 6play is our AVOD service, Salto will be an SVOD pay system. 6play is supported by advertising. It is a big success because we have 1.2 million active daily users, 700 million of video views, plus 15% year-on-year. And historic record with 2 million active users on April 14. It shows the potential of 6play, we would like to develop with specific programs In Q1, ratings for radio were also highly satisfactory. I'd like to remind you that the audience share is the highest rating criteria, and it's the same as for television. And from that perspective, RTL, the RTL station, was #1 in France based on audience shares with a radio business that grew by plus 0.7 percentage points in terms of audience share over the period, close to 19 points. And which is above -- heads and shoulders above all the legacy private groups, that's our competitors. So good positioning for Radio. And there was a radio wave after lockdown, which was marked by record audience share for RTL, 13.4%, especially with the Yves Calvi morning show, which is catching up on France Inter, which was the main competitor, and it's now catching up over [ France RTL ]. And it's now, obviously, the #1 station in terms of audience share in France and the best in private station in cumulative terms. And RTL2 and Fun Radio had a very good wave with good performance as well over this post lockdown wave. Radio suffered from the fact that during lockdown 40% roughly of audience -- of ratings come from mobility. And so there was no mobility during lockdown. So the media suffered during lockdown compared to television. But in the wave that's just been published after lockdown, we can see that it's now catching up very quickly on the ratings that it had before lockdown, thanks to mobility, which is now resuming the advertising market, the job was very violent on the advertising market. We are facing a 25.7% decline in advertising revenues at EUR 400 million, as I said earlier. And with -- on television, and 6play, 25.5%; and for other operations, especially radio, a 25% -- 27% decline. So it's similar for the whole half year. There was a decline roughly of the overall market, which should be along the market between 25% and 27% for the whole market. So that is a drop that we were faced with very significantly. So regarding advertising revenues for television, we were able to offset that partly with major savings that we decided on as early as March because compared to the nearly EUR 100 million drop in advertising income, we had the impact of the 41% decline for TV at EUR 66 million versus nearly EUR 100 million in the previous year. For radio, we had EUR 60 million in revenues versus EUR 82.3 million for the same quarter in 2019. Radio had a slight loss at minus EUR 2.2 million for the half year versus EUR 12 million positive for the first half '19. Why is such a more marked decline in results for radio compared to television? Radio is mostly a fixed cost business. We have 18 hours of live shows on RTL. So during the very important period, we -- there was no way we were going to change the economics. So we made savings on the structure cost, but not on programming during the period. For Production and Audiovisual Rights, in spite of the closure of cinemas, which had a significant impact on movie releases, we were able to maintain -- we more than maintained EBITDA. We grew EBITDA by 27% at 14.4% because the catalog policy we've had for years served the group first, but also external clients outside the group, and so that contributed to our income, thanks to the policy we've had for years. And by the way, we acquired a catalog during the period very recently, which is that of Epithète. In Other Diversifications, let me remind you that we had some major asset recycling in our diversification, not to give them up to the benefits of core business as we read here and there. But because these are mature assets that are not going to grow much more within the group. So we prefer to dispose of them or create partnerships as we did with iGraal, so that we can start a new cycle which will be more favorable to them. So as regards technologies, an update about the portfolio. We've got bedrock now 50-50. It's now been deconsolidated with RTL group. We've got a Fintech with Quicksign, which is a company that we hold 34% of, which digitizes documents for credit, especially consumer credit with major retailers, and we also have a subsidiary in Lille, northern France for e-mailing, in particular, called hosting, where we hold 100%. Regarding digital media, we have a number of portals where we saw that synergies worked very well during the period. Those -- well, mostly around 2 main sites, Cuisine AZ the second largest site in terms of cooking, and it worked very well during the period; and Passeport Santé, which for other reasons, works very well because it's a health gateway. Both are established in Lille. Technology had EUR 17 million in revenues. Digital media had EUR 16 million over the period. We -- I won't come back over the shared control of GSG, Global Savings Group with the contribution of iGraal. We have a bank comparison website, [indiscernible], where we have 50%, and we've got a -- an influencer website where we have 51%. And backing core business, we have a number of activities, mostly Stéphane Plaza, the real estate network. We have 50% of Stéphane Plaza Immobilière now a network of roughly 550 real estate agencies, franchises that we organize. And it's a very profitable network, and the aim of which is to carry on with its growth, and it's growing very well. Including this year in very decent conditions indeed. And we also had an operation with the decoration website called Miliboo, which is a media for equity. As regards home shopping, Jérôme Lefébure will say a few words. We disposed of our business. We have a project to dispose of our HSS business selling that to a company that will merge the former assets of teleshopping and therefore, of HSS, in order to grow this home shopping business with the merger of the 2 main diffusers on the broadcasting platforms, Group TF1 and Group M6. Given the new competition of e-commerce, we wanted to dispose of this business so that the buyer could have a business with more synergies, thanks to the contribution of Teleshopping's revenues. So that they could still look for new products, package the products and remain very competitive on the market. I'd like to remind you that we are still interested in the fees paid to us for the broadcasting of home shopping shows on our channels. And we still have 51% of best of TV which are home shopping items that are physically distributed in our stores, but we've got an option over these 51% for the -- from the company that aims to buy HSS. So we had very good resilience in diversifications, excluding from the negative base effects and the disposal of iGraal, which was deconsolidated in the end of the M6 mobile contract, that was the last time that we had a comparison with a negative base effect, but we held up well in terms of income because we had 82.2 -- EUR 81.2 million in revenues and EUR 8.2 million in EBITDA. I will now hand over to Jerome, who will walk you through the temporary accounts, and I will say a few words about the business for H2.
Jérôme Lefébure
executiveThank you, Nicolás. As regards the overall consolidated EBITDA. A few additional comments to the operational explanations that have just been given. First of all, operating margin -- current operating margin was 15.1% over -- during that severe crisis period versus 20% in 2019. That's true. And here, you've got the effect of the crisis here, you've got a line that declined significantly as were many others because of personnel costs with a mechanical impact related to the decline in revenues. And so all that contributed to results, lower results on partnership because of these personnel costs. Regarding the bottom of the financial statements, you've got financial income in line with last year. We mobilized all of our funding as early as lockdown started. So that the group could look to the forthcoming months and weeks with peace of mind, so a charge of EUR 2.4 million versus EUR 2.8 billion previous year. Joint ventures and associates, a significant variation between 2020 and 2019, closely explained by the impairment of goodwill on shares from an events organization company where we bought a stake in late 2018, which is Wide World Agency. And mostly the operating losses from our 2 strategic projects, which are Bedrock and Salto. We are in the investment phase right now to develop the platforms and the associated underlying tools for the operational launch of Salto in October. Of course, the significant drop in operating income led to a significant decline in income tax and so the capital gains made after the disposal and mergers with the Global Savings Group and Bedrock did not give rise to immediate taxation or reduced taxation as regards the iGraal securities disposal, and that explains the significant decline in the income tax burden during the half year. It's important to note that net profit before capital gains, declined because of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Regarding the simplified balance sheet, it's important to note that the total balance sheet grew by EUR 208.5 million over the half year because of several operations that have just been explained to you very quickly. Amongst the noncurrent assets, you've got the impact of the GSG operation with iGraal and Bedrock that led not only to a value adjustments on the participatory shares for GSG, but also goodwill revaluations, and that explains the EUR 75 million in increase in the noncurrent assets. Current assets really reflected the impact of the COVID-19 crisis with a significant decline in customer receivables. And so on the liabilities, there's a decline in payables because of the slowing down in business during the half year and the quarter, mostly, but also because the forthcoming impact on Q3 because of the fact that the sales in small months of April and May will have an impact on the cash position for the second half. As regards cash, you can see an increase in cash flow, which is fully offset by mobilization of our funding on the liability side, as I said, so in terms of cash flow, we also benefited during the quarter amongst the equity of the group at June 30, there is an increase because of the waived dividend that improved the cash flow. Now regarding the cash flow statement, still, net cash at closure was EUR 1.9 million versus EUR 39 million last year, but the good way to read this standardized table is to read the top of the table and not looking at the nonrecurring items, especially in terms of investment because that mostly reflects in 2020, the EUR 27 million, a contribution to cash -- the contribution of the iGraal shares. So if you look at the top, what's interesting is that the group was very agile. So operating cash flows remained fairly stable. Net of current investment with only EUR 3.9 million discrepancy between 2019 and 2020. And here, you can see the COVID impact. In 2020, a significant decline in the self-financing capacity because of the pressure that there was on income. But mostly, a positive change in WCR, which reflected -- was reflected into a resource of EUR 36 million versus a net expenditure of EUR 45 million last year. We reduced our current investments. Because of the crisis and so that freed up resources for EUR 12 million compared to last year. And that was a half year during which, as I explained already, we brought funding to Salto and Bedrock, mostly, which used cash for slightly less than EUR 7 million versus roughly EUR 0 million last year. Thank you so much for the current activity. At the bottom of the table, you find what I was just telling you, the mobilization of financing lines, EUR 153 million. And also the savings in 2020 of the dividend that had weighed on cash last year. Hence, a net closing balance of EUR 1.9 million, while we have sufficient cash to deal with the summer and the consequences of the reduction in revenue we've had in the second quarter. Nicolás?
Nicolas de Tavernost
executiveThank you, Jerome. So we can draw a few lessons from this very specific period we're going through. First, the group was affected by the first virus last October where we had a very important IT attack. The group has mobilized its forces on October 12 because of that virus that we were able to resist that cyberattack and take a number of measures. If you go back to the sanitary crisis, there are several lessons we can draw. The force of the media notably, TV and the streaming all this has been shown during the crisis with a very high efficiency. Secondly, the group's agility that has shown it was able as early as the beginning of the crisis to faced with its teams very quickly, to face an unexpected situation. We have lost 70% of our revenue in April, which shows the depth of this crisis, the magnitude of it. Finally, we can say that everybody has made efforts very quickly. First of all, our shareholders, we proposed not to pay the dividend in March, EUR 125 million that were saved by the group to reinforce its equity and face of crisis. Secondly, the employees themselves, who we have renewed a profit-sharing mechanism. They have to go through a difficult situation. They've mobilized themselves to operate the antennas. They've been very efficient, and we have decided, by the way, that we would give up for the 200 employees and the savings made by the group will be largely reused to allow to hire young graduates in September, who will come and help the teams. I think it is a duty for companies like ours. It's also a guarantee for the future because that will allow us to benefit from skills. The first recruitment will take place in September. The third thing is the government. The government has also contributed. Even though we have repaid 100% of furlough, we've had some furlough in April, May, June. And the number of measures were announced and voted by the parliament during the third budget law. Notably, a tax credit for creation that should be efficient for 2020 and also broadcasting aids for radios. Finally, I would say that among the long-term lessons we may draw from this crisis, we're not -- we're going through, which is not over. Regarding the organization of work. First, the corporate culture is more than ever necessary. Initiative is more than ever necessary. Work organization should take account of that. Both from a physical point of view, we've signed an agreement during this period for this year -- for next year, to experiment working from home. Once again, that's for practical. We're developing what we had initiated, the flex time, which allows us to optimize the use of our offices, but also the organization of society we want to be very efficient and operational. Finally, regarding programs, we have drawn a number of lessons regarding the use of our stocks and the future use of our catalogs, the future use of our license. We're drawing a number of lessons in order to be able to optimize our program. That's very important during this period. Finally, we're maybe the crisis has accelerated. Some processes. We're expecting a number of new laws. We should have the corresponding decrease, which, in fact, we're already applying. We had been expecting that for cinema. We should be allowed to do advertising for the cinema sector very soon, address advertising -- addressable advertising should also be allowed. And we're expecting the same evolution for production. We will be very attentive to that. The authorities have said that they want to adapt, to transpose the FMA directive next January. Those are conditions regarding what you have to invest in platforms, and we're hoping that on that occasion, we would like to clarify the rules according to which we can produce in France, both with the necessary independent actors, but also to invest more significantly in this production. The content is the key to our success, including in difficult period. Regarding outlook for advertising. I would say that we have followed -- maybe France was more severely hit in March and April. It has recovered quickly after the lockdown, quicker than others. Therefore, we have very uncertain visibility as of September. So I can make no forecast regarding advertising in the last 4 months period. It's very much related to the economic activity. If we remain in the present condition, no new health crisis, and there were a stimulus plan, I think that TV and Radio are very well positioned because the speed of penetration during a stimulus plan will be indispensable. We are the most qualified media to do traffic in shops and develop that activity. Under those conditions, if the health crisis stops, if we have a stimulus plan, we can be ambitious about the end of 2020 and 2021. But all this remains to be confirmed. We'll see in September. This is what I could tell you, ladies and gentlemen. About this first half of 2020, I would say that the group has remained positive with EUR 40 million despite the crisis we had never seen with significant operating margin. Beyond the difficulties we have had, I would say that we have been very efficient and Jérôme and I are now ready to answer your questions if you have any.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions] We have one first question from Ms. Maas from BNB Paribas.
Annick Maas
analystMy first question regards the ad we have seen in July. Is that new money? Or is that budget deferred from previous months? Secondly, could you tell us more about the programming cost for the year? After that, I just have a question of Salto. Could you update us on the level of investment, the launch of Salto? Finally, since you have sold your production catalog, what does the second half look like regarding catalog sales?
Nicolas de Tavernost
executiveYes. Regarding the advertising for the summer, I don't know whether it is old money or new money, money that is spent. It's not compulsory deferrals of campaigns that were canceled in March in April. Those are regular and normal investments in this period of July and August. I'd like to insist on the fact that we have no visibility on September and the following months. Regarding programming costs, we're confirming that we'll be saving EUR 100 million regarding the 29 budget -- 2019. We will be very aggressive, starting at the end of August with a number of movies and major brands. Of course, we have a backup plan, the B plan. If we had another suspension that we would have a different policy, which we have considered if the economy did not pick up or if we had another lockdown. The uncertainty is very high. The company has demonstrated its agility in the last 4 months, and we remain very conservative and cautious as to what could happen in September. Regarding now the catalogs. We're going to keep using our catalog, taking with the movie -- movies we have co-produced. You have seen one yesterday. We have also taken from catalogs last Saturday. We even put movies on Saturdays. Here again, we have had a record Saturday. We can be very happy. And finally, regulatory measures allow historic media to fight platforms because a lot of people watched M6, 3.5 million. They couldn't be on the platforms at the same time. So regarding Salto, I won't comment. I will let management do that. We are within the envelope in terms of funding. We've just postponed the commercial start, not the technical start beginning of October, and that start will take place in the best possible condition. The technical platform is being tested with better testers on Salto. Salto will tell you more about their program in September, commercial opening is in October. A number of programs we were considering with the 2 other shareholders. We have used them because of production delays that's why we thought it would be wiser to move that to have a high program quality in October. It should be very attractive on the Salto platform.
Operator
operatorWe've got a question from Julien Roch, Barclays.
Julien Roch
analystMy first question coming back to TV advertising. Usually, you don't disclose the monthly trends, but given the exceptional circumstances, maybe we could get an idea of the rebound. So without the minus EUR 28 million that you had in Q2 in organic TV advertising, could we get the ventilation April, May, June? And you said that you had no visibility over September. Nicolás, could you have -- give us the figures for July and August? That's the first question. Then returning to Page 33, for the first time you disclosed indicators about what is left in terms of diversifications. You valued all these assets at EUR 154 million on what basis? And what is the contribution from all of these assets? And there are lots of them that are accounted for by the equity method. What's the contribution of all these assets to revenues, EBITDA and net income? That was question 2. And question 3, about the negotiations with telcos, France television signed an agreement with Bouygues and SFR. In the U.K., Amazon is asking for 25% of advertising on TVs in order to get ads on the home screen of the -- of their TV system. What about the negotiations? And how much do you think that you should pay to French telcos?
Nicolas de Tavernost
executiveWell, that's quite a diverse set of questions. I'll let Jerome answer without going into the details of each diversification because they're very different in nature, but explaining on what criteria, the EUR 154 million were assessed at -- well to date. Regarding addressable advertising, this is a sector that should open up. We're waiting for the implementing decree. There are limitations in terms of addresses. That's a market that you shouldn't overestimate, because TV is mostly bought based on its firepower rather than targets, but it's a market that should perform well. It so happens that to date, we don't have any deals yet with the ISPs, given the current discussions about value sharing. We are taking our cue from foreign examples, especially in Germany, where the value sharing proposed by telcos is very different from what you can see. I didn't understand that when you were selling telephone services to a doctor, they had to give you back a cut on their medical procedures. So of course, we will pay for services, but not in the circumstances that were discussed. France televisions agreed. Why? Because they've always considered advertising to be marginal, and that's an issue for us, by the way. Because since it's marginal, it should be done away with entirely will be simpler. And so far as the attention that they get on the market is not the same. So we discussed with telco operators. What they want is not to kill off the market because it's even hatched, and so we will no doubt have further conversations about the distribution of our channels and services. And so we should be able to find a deal. That's any way what we wish for. So we'll have a conversation to renew certain distribution agreements. And that's -- we're in no hurry. We are already doing addressable advertising on our OTT streaming services. We already have such an offering. We know how to do that. And I think that telco operators, it won't be in their interest to push for operators like TF1 Group or M6 Group to develop OTT services at the detriment of their own modems. So they'll see that it's a win-win situation that we can find an agreement on the value sharing of these operations. Regarding the monthly revenue figures, I won't get into that. But simply, I said there was an improvement compared to the catastrophic situation in April, that started in March, by the way, but April was deeper, close to 2/3 of revenues lost during the period. It's improved substantially in May -- well, improved in May, and substantially so in June to reach an average figure of 42% over the quarter. At the beginning of the COVID crisis, we announced that we would lose advertising revenues to the tune of 50%. The months of July and August are not quite significant. However, the trend is returning to normal for that market, and we hope that we can confirm that for the 2 summer months. So just to answer the question about the diversifications portfolio. The value that we disclosed here is the consolidated contribution of all the partnerships where we have a percentage that's listed on the slide with the 4 main blocks of diversification. And of course, the only ones that are 100% consolidated are Digital Media and best of TV, because we've got 51% with control and [indiscernible] in technologies, the first block. The value is strictly the value of the net consolidated net ad assets that held. And so then you need to calculate the headroom and the potential for each asset. That's not what we aim to do here. The aim was to show that we've structured and expanded our asset base. An asset base on which we can build future stories in future, similar to what we did in due time with the Bordeaux Football Club or MonAlbumPhoto or HSS, which is currently held for sale.
Julien Roch
analystAnd Jérôme, coming back to that, the contribution of all these assets to net income, either for H1 '20, what will that be?
Jérôme Lefébure
executiveI do not have the contribution to net income off the top of my head. Well, it's major in terms of capital gains, that's for sure. But what I mean, well, you need to think in overall terms on that business. So either we have capital gains when we exit. That was the case for MonAlbumPhoto. So there's not just the income contribution or revenue contribution. Our aim is to create assets for all of these activities, but we can't give you all the details because some are very small, and others are going to change further.
Julien Roch
analystAnd I do understand that. But if they contributed nothing to net income, you could consider that you need to remove EUR 154 million to your market value, which reduces the multiple and which makes M6 even less expensive?
Jérôme Lefébure
executiveWell, no, no. That -- I won't qualify that reasoning, but we can discuss it after that, Julien, but the EUR 154 million is the value assets, the asset value in the consolidated accounts and in digital marketing, in the EUR 92 million, you've got GSG, and you could see that over the half year, we had a capital gain based on the contribution because we revalued our shares in GSG. Matching GSG, you've got -- there's a business plan with international development backed on -- by several continents. And so the value potential is much higher. So out of EUR 16 million in the contribution for Digital Media, while you've got not and for Bedrock, as we presented earlier, most of -- that's mostly the asset value of the technology, but they've got a very ambitious development plan for the next 5 years to extend their customer base. So we are faced with real future development with great potential value in the future.
Operator
operatorWe have a question from Conor O'Shea from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Conor O'Shea
analyst2 quick questions. The first one, could we get the potential impact of the deconsolidation of HSS, home shopping services, after the future disposal? And secondly, just regarding the audiovisual act in its final state, what's your read on changes made by the new Minister of Culture? Could that have a positive or negative impact on the final state of the text?
Nicolas de Tavernost
executiveWell, about the deconsolidation of HSS, well, first, the operation needs to be confirmed, it will have a fairly significant revenue impact on business. But it will have a relatively marginal impact on income. That had become marginal in terms of EBITDA for the group. That's why we are carrying out the disposal. There won't be any negative impact on net income. And there will still be the contribution, as Jérôme highlighted, on the distribution fee for home shopping. We'll still have best of TV, as we said, with a possibility of a handover after 3 years. Regarding the broadcasting act, let me remind you that the broadcasting act has been suspended. There are a number of things that can be done with decrees. So we're waiting for the publication of 2 decrees, 1 about programming, the other 1 about advertising. They should be cleared by the [ consolidator ] fairly quickly. Then there's the implementing law that was voted or that's being voted on in order to have executive orders on production vis-à-vis the GAFA that will be subject to the SMA directive from June onwards. And so by decrees, a certain number of actions will be taken to make provisions -- further provisions to the production broadcasting regulations that are -- that were subject to in France. There won't be any major broadcasting act that was mostly due to -- mostly devoted to the public sector broadcaster. There won't be any major announcements, be it on piracy or the public service broadcaster reform. But we should get some improvements, thanks to decrees that will be adopted as part of the negotiations with the platforms, so that their regime will be aligned as much as possible on ours via the SMA Directive. So same regimes on GAFAs and -- for the GAFAs as for the legacy operators.
Operator
operatorNext question by Remi Grisard, Societe Generale.
Remi Grisard
analystFirst of all, a question about tax with the tax credit for creation that was announced. The amount seemed to be fairly high, up to 15% of the cost of certain programs. Could you confirm that it will have a material impact in 2020? Could you imagine that it would last subsequently or was that really a one-off, to your view? Then about Radio. We saw articles about Radio Salto. Could you tell us more regarding the costs or the outlook for a launch date? And then regarding production activities, there were transactions in this area. The new audiovisual access, does that change your activities to develop in-house production?
Nicolas de Tavernost
executiveI'll let Regis Ravanas, who is with us and who joined the management Board, is in charge of the audio activities for the group to answer about the merger, the coming together of radios for this distribution project. Regarding sectoral measures that were adopted as part of the third additional budget by the government, 2 measures were voted on, there will be referred to the European Commission as state aid. Firstly, tax credit for creation affecting expenditures committed by channels for audiovisual works in France and Europe for movies and art house that were made between first of March and December 31, 2020, for this year. This setup is not going to continue beyond 2020 as things stand. Of course, if there was another crisis, well, the government will look into that matter again. But as voted, this provision will stop on December 31, 2020. So that's a tax credit on effective programming expenditure over the period. And that will increase a 15% tax credit, so that won't have an impact on EBITDA, but on net income. And as things stand today, we're not able to tell you exactly what will be the exact amount for the group in terms of program expenditures for 2020 -- and so net income 2020, but that will be a non -- negligible amount we hope. Secondly, there is a reimbursement on budget credits for broadcasting of local and national radios, for all radio -- private radio stations. These radio stations will benefit from a reimbursement of some of their broadcasting costs over the period with a budget credit that was voted to the tune of EUR 30 million for all French national and local stations. And RTL's share will be based on a pro rata of the broadcasting cost for it. It's not major in terms of financial amounts because it's an overall envelope of EUR 30 million. Yet RTL, the 3 stations in the RTL group will get their share. If the European Commission agrees with that provision, they will get a cut. But the provisoire is that there will be a 10% drop in revenue for the station. But that should be the case for our group, the stations in our group. Regis to answer about what was called a Salto platform for radio.
Regis Ravanas
executiveThis is an association project within a company that was created, starting from 4 groups, our shareholders, the Chairman of the committee, [indiscernible], who represents the independent; the public service, Radio France, LagardèRe and M6. [indiscernible] have shown an interest in joining quickly this consortium. The objective is quite simple, is to recover the control of our distribution, notably in the context of interfaces on car or smart speakers. We can't tell you much more than that for the time being. The purpose is to try together to be more powerful to negotiate with third party operators, notably to get better distribution conditions and access to data. This is what I could tell you. There will be no cost or additional revenue with that project. We're -- there's no specific offer or investment cost. There will be a small investment cost, but the objective is mainly to get better distribution conditions, access to data is also the improvement in sales. In that context, it may allow improvement of revenue. But I think it's going to take some time for that project to implement. Digital distribution is still marginal in France. No more questions?
Operator
operatorYes, Thomas Coudry, from Bryan Garnier, you have the floor.
Thomas Coudry
analystYes. One question about the contents. I'd like to know, since advertising -- revenue if advertising revenue does not come back to normal figures, do you still intend to absorb 60% of the TV drop more in the months to come. More generally, I guess that all savings measures on content, have shown some good ideas or possible sources of savings. Maybe if we go back to normal in terms of advertising markets, maybe you have a content baseline that will be lower than before.
Nicolas de Tavernost
executiveThank you for this very interesting question. Indeed, we have a number of lessons to draw from the use of our catalogs, stocks, production contracts. Because of necessity, we have had to take into account a number of processes that will be sustainable. And last, that is a positive news for the group. The group has seen possibilities of optimization to optimize our program costs. What is the recovery rate vis-à-vis a volume of loss? I would say that we will stick to our EUR 100 million savings plan. As I said, we have a plan B, that is not so much based on recovering advertising, but more on reducing programming costs. We will try and defend our market share, which is very important, as we did in radio and television over the period. It's absolutely not our intention to drop the group's market share. We've grown during that period. We will adapt to that. It is difficult to know exactly what we will do, but we have a plan that provides for that kind of agreement. Now we're producing a lot because we want to increase our stocks. Especially on the West Coast in the U.S., all production has stopped. So we're going to save on the U.S. programs. This is something we had already started doing before. And it is in our interest to have as many production as possible. A number of productions have started in order to have a significant stock to face production uncertainties in the months to come, because we don't know what will happen abroad in the months to come, whether we will have production.
Operator
operatorA question from Jérôme Bodin of ODDO.
Jérôme Bodin
analystA few questions. Just to go back to what you about the savings of EUR 100 million. You have done half on the first half. How are you going to do for the rest of the year? Are you going to focus on Q3, Q4 if the markets pick up? The guidance you gave a few months ago, does that also integrate the savings you could make on movies? That's my first question. Second question. To go back to the advertising trends, you're talking of a return to normal. Do you think that -- does this mean that you're positive in July? September is the key month, but do we have a positive growth in July? One last question on net cash. You're going -- you're about 0 on half 1, you have investment capability. What are your priorities in terms of acquisitions in the next 3 years?
Nicolas de Tavernost
executiveYes. A lot of questions. That's why you've interpreted my speech. That's why I never want to say, I never said we were positive in July. I said that the trend is going towards normal, July is not over. I never said that July was positive. I said that we were back to a flat situation, as always in summer. And beyond August, I don't have any idea of what's going on. So I confirm that I don't know. And we will see. We're doing our best for customers to come back, but I don't know how -- what September will look like. That's the first point. We've had a terrible April. May and June have improved. July and August, we're hoping a return to a normal situation. It doesn't really matter given the period we're going through. If we're are doing minus 1% or minus 2% in July, it has no significance. Regarding programming costs. There are 2 things. First, there are savings that we have made this year vis-à-vis last year, i.e., we have saved EUR 50 million over last year. The EUR 100 million we've indicated is in relation to the budget, notably, with the Euro that was supposed to be taking place in July. So if we go back to normal, we will have normal programming cost in Q4. So things are very simple, flexible. We want to be very aggressive in September. We will adapt. Of course, there will be no increase vis-à-vis last year of programming cost in the last 4 months, but if we're back to a normal rhythm because of a profitable advertising or we have difficulties on the advertising market, and we will continue reducing programming costs. The 2 options were main options, but we will, anyway, have saved EUR 100 million vis-à-vis the budget. The third question on investments. Regarding investments, we're expecting to be at the end of the crisis to see how we can use opportunities. We will acquire rights. So thank you very much for attending this conference. The first step was total lockdown once again for us, for our partner, for our customers. I hope that we will be in a more normal situation. We have worked a lot during this period. At the present time, I have to say that our company was indeed hit by the COVID, but we already, in case of economic recovery in September. So have a good summer, and see you for the 2020 results in February 2021. Thank you.
Operator
operatorLadies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for attending. You can now disconnect.
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