MFE-Mediaforeurope N.V. (MFEB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Mediaset 2020 9 Months Results Web and Phone Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Simone Sole. Please go ahead.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2020 9 months Results Presentation of Mediaset. Today, we're going to have a roughly 1-hour presentation, including the Q&A. Let me immediately introduce the speakers today. Marco Giordani, CFO of the group; and Matteo Cardani, Managing Director of Publitalia, our sales house arm in the group. I will hand over immediately to Marco for initial introduction. Thank you, Marco.

Good morning also on my side, and thank you for attending the call. Before starting the presentation, I would like just to say a few words about the most recent result we published just a few minutes ago. In the third quarter, we posted, frankly speaking, a very outstanding performance, probably the best in the industry with a positive advertising revenue increase of 4.7%, better than the market expectation, and more importantly, better than the Italian market that was down 1.4% in the same quarter. We protected the cash flow margins. As you know, we have executed a pretty strong cost discipline. And the profit and cash flow performance of the quarter has been really outstanding. We started the season -- the autumn season with a high-quality programming schedule. Audience shares were very, very good so far and we are very, very happy about that. The new government restrictions that are maintaining people at home, it's clearly benefiting in terms of total audience. Clearly, the second wave of pandemic and the new restriction imply limited visibility on the fourth quarter. But in any case, we aim to mitigate the effect of the pandemic, acting on costs and managing the cash flow as we did in the first 9 months. Now I would like to turn the call over to Matteo to discuss audience and performance of the advertising market. Matteo?

Thank you, Marco, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for your attendance. Today, we comment on 9 months results with a focus, as Marco just stated, on Q3 contribution to the progress of this past year. And we separate the Q3 analysis from any consideration regarding Q4 outlook. We ended last call commenting on confidence indicators and consumption patterns. And today, I want to restart our conversation exactly from where we left. I'm commenting Chart #3. There has been a positive, and to some extent, unexpected sharp upturn in June and July and this has been positively consolidated by following months. With regard to confidence indicators, the monthly evolution of -- for our consumers and business clearly drove a fast recovery in Q3 after the spring dip down. The recovery pattern extended till October before new lockdown restriction for the second COVID wave were announced. Then, I'm commenting Chart #4 and the interesting thing is that this upward trend is almost fully reflected in real consumption where the pattern is aligned with confidence index. A very strong and deep downturn during lockdown, but positive upturn signals, mainly in goods consumption for 4 months in a row from June to September. I move now to -- from macroeconomic indicators to advertising market, I'm commenting Chart #5. Interestingly, positively and luckily, in Q3, we can simply state that on a monthly basis, the evolution of the advertising market is following the evolution of the economic situation. You know that the consolidated H1 advertising market trend was minus EUR 26.8 million and the 9 months performance for the overall advertising market is minus 20.3%. So this corresponds to a flattish trend in Q3. And commenting about the market. It's not our performance, it's market performance. This was driven mainly by positive trends in TV market and digital market. You see in Chart #5 that there is a high variance among media. But if we focus our attention on our addressable perimeter, you see that we can state that TV is positive in Q3 and this consolidates to minus 15% in 9 months. So recovering 7 points versus H1. Digital, again, is positive from a market perspective in Q3, and therefore, 9 months is single-digit now for digital. And radio is recovering, too, in Q3. It's still negative, but 9 months performance is definitely improving and correcting H1 performance. Now I move to Chart #6 and I'm commenting our 9-month result. It's minus 16.9% and this actually represents a better-than-market performance. So we are minus 16.9% compared to minus 20.3% and this turns into an advertising market share of 40.2%. As we commented in H1, we don't want to elaborate too much on market share data in such a critical market situation. But we simply share the fact that this is a synthetic indicator of our market position, our resilience that is 160 basis points better than 9 months 2019 and above the target range of our set plan presented in London, January 2017. Then I move to Chart #7. As you know, our policy is not to comment on each single month but we keep on sharing with you the proper time framework to understand the dynamics of the crisis. And we divided the 2020 evolution into 4 different phases, so the Jan-Feb organic trend, the COVID outbreak and impact of lockdown period, the first initial recovery and now we have, let's say, the 4 frame of this sequence. That is, Q3, a clear quarter of recovery, plus 4.7%, and as Marco remarked at the opening of this session, that the market performance that was flattish, specifically it was minus 1.4% in Q3. The interesting thing is that the shape and the velocity of the recovery is, to some extent, better-than-expected because we were double-digit down in May, single-digit down in June, single-digit up in July, double-digit up in August and September we keep on going with a slightly better-than-flat performance. Now in the remaining part of the presentation, I'd like to share with you 2 key points in order to offer you the best possible understanding of the underlying dynamics in 9 months and possible insights into Q4. I focus on 2 key points: total video/total audience evolution and then economic sector analysis. I'm now commenting Chart #8. With regard to linear TV audience, the graph shows weak year-on-year performance of TV as a whole medium. So it's not Mediaset, that is TV -- Italian TV. And it is self-evident, the centrality of this medium throughout all 2020 months before lockdown, during lockdown and developing phase and the recovery phase. It is interesting to notice that the year-on-year performance is always above past year performance. And it is interesting to notice that as soon as new soft restrictions were introduced in October, immediately there has been a new uprise in TV total audience. So for advertisers, TV is a solid rock in time of uncertainty. Next chart, you have the comparisons between Mediaset linear TV performance and TV as a medium. And you see that Mediaset linear TV performed better than market in terms of audience, on average, in each of the 4 phases of 2020. And this explains the following chart that is Chart #10 where you can appreciate that the positive audience share trend, that is confirmed also by October results, so the opening of the TV season was definitely good for us, for Mediaset. And on top of it -- on top of linear performance, we have an even better digital nonlinear audience performance. The indicators is 36.8% 9-month performance on digital screens in terms of total time spent. So core business in good health. And then, I comment Chart #11, where you can appreciate our total audience evolution, linear and nonlinear. So on top of good health of our linear TV audience, there is the long-term positive structural dynamics of TV content consumption on digital screen and smart television. You see a constant double-digit growth for both of them, connected television and digital screens throughout all the periods of 2020 analysis. So even it may sound that the products 2020 COVID year actually restated the centrality of linear TV, and at the same time, accelerated the evolution of total video consumption in Italian media habits. Then the last point of my presentation before handing over to Marco, the second key driver to understand the situation is definitely economic sector dynamics. I'm commenting Chart #12. We are all now familiar after 9 months with a strong asymmetry of COVID impact across economic sectors. This chart, again, represents trend in value sales for each economic sector in 9 months. It's not Mediaset dynamics, it's the business trend of our advertiser. We already showed this analysis, and the 9 months confirms the overall picture. A large part of the economic sector that accounts more than 70% in terms of contribution to our business experienced a moderate growth notwithstanding the COVID crisis. While the other part of the economic sector that accounts for a large part of the gross domestic product, but less than 30% in terms of contribution to our business, were, for sure, more impacted by the crisis. Following this frame of analysis, dividing the economy and commenting Chart #13 into 3 main sectors: resilient, restarting and restricted. This framework proved to be the right one to understand the crisis evolution, and most of all, business particle implication. And then, I'm commenting my last chart. Here you see in Chart #14 sector analysis according to this 3R model, resilient, restarting and restricted, and I do not want to elaborate too much on this chart because I do think it's quite self-explanatory because you see that resilient sectors were definitely slightly better than flat in Q3. Restarting sector was really the protagonist, the main driver in Q3 because they experienced an important double-digit growth mainly driven by automotive, but not only automotive, also finance and insurance. And in Q3, the so-called still restricted sector were recovering. They were still negative, but definitely improving. So this was, let's say, the picture at the end of September and now what about the Q4 outlook? We know that the restriction measures decided so far by the government will last until early December and there may be also some further restrictions. And of course, at present, the restricted sectors were directly impacted, but they provide a limited contribution to our advertising revenue collection. The resilient sectors that show resilience, so far, are holding up well also in this week. And the Black Friday and Christmas combines our 2 strong differential factors compared to March-April situation that should limit the impact on advertising collection compared to the contraction we registered in Q2. Of course, we are taking a close look to automotive mainly and finance, but mainly automotive because they helped a lot in Q3 and maybe they may suffer more in Q4. But as of today, we don't have any signals in that direction. So for the remaining part of 2020, the remaining 7 weeks of this year, visibility is still limited. However, we note that the second half of November is driven by Black Friday and the center weeks of December are supported by Christmas, also weaker that in a normal year should remain a demand driver. So to summarize. At the end of H1, our advertising collection was minus at 24.5% year-on-year. In Q3, thanks to the good summer performance, the year-on-year trend improved, allowing us to close the advertising collection of the first 9 months at minus 16.9%. Q4 started well, broadly in line with September, so the advertising trend is improving further. And as of today, the year-to-date performance of advertising collection is at minus 14.5%. So corresponding to 10 percentage points of improvement compared to H1. So our ambition for fiscal year 2020 is to achieve a year-on-year trend of the advertising collection above the pro forma register as of today. This is my presentation, and now I pass to Marco for his part. And thank you.

Thank you, Matteo. Starting from -- starting with the financial part of the presentation at Page 16. There are the group level performance and highlights. As you can see, we closed the 9 months with EUR 1.722 billion of revenue. Clearly, a pretty important decrease versus last year, but with an EBITDA of EUR 484 million. Despite the impact on revenue that we clearly showed, we are able to achieve -- we were able to achieve a positive group EBIT for almost EUR 90 million and a positive net profit. As I said before, the third quarter is really, really good with flattish revenue, but an improved EBIT of around EUR 60 million versus the third quarter of last year. We closed the 9 months with a net financial position -- with a negative net financial provision of EUR 1.173 billion including the acquisition of the last 5% ProSieben stake and showing an improvement of the cash generation of around EUR 175 million. As you can see, the net financial position improved over the 9 months. As you know, I mean, today, Mediaset has secured the availability of up to 24.9% of voting share of ProSiebenSat.1 Media with the recent increase I just commented. As far as the covenant situation, you know that our covenants are calculated differently and so that's the reason for which we are showing the adjusted group net financial position that was negative for EUR 572 million at the end of September. That adjustment is excluding the financial liabilities according to IFRS 16 and the financial debt arising from the acquisition of ProSieben. As you know, our covenants are set at 2x EBITDA on this basis. And as you can see, we have -- I mean the headroom is pretty large in that respect. Just a few words about the financial situation. As at September 30, we have EUR 650 million of undrawn revolving credit facility that are mainly expiring '23 and '25 plus additional EUR 673 million of uncommitted facility. And that clearly increased our headroom available vis-à-vis the drawn facilities. And now we are less than 50% of, let's say, drawn facility on the total. No maturity until '21 and confirming the cost of debt. And we are increasing the duration of debt from 1.9 year at the end of '19 to around 2.15 of today. Then stepping in, in the Italian business. And clearly, Matteo has already commented the advertising performance. The other revenue line is in line with last year. That's clearly a pretty outstanding performance because in this line, we are clearly facing a discontinuity because, last year, in the first half, we still had the pay-TV revenue coming from our activity that are no more present in '19. So the fact that we have the same number of last year is clearly pretty important. Going -- looking at the year-end, we are still targeting EUR 300 million other revenue for the full year. Clearly, this number can move a little bit because clearly we don't know whether in December, the theater -- the cinema theater would reopen again or not. So there can be some EUR 5 million up and down. But in any case, a EUR 300 million round numbers is still the target for the full year. Moving to cost. I would like to underline the fact that we were able to offset more than 75% of the decline in revenue with cost cutting. That's, again, a pretty clear example of how we manage cash flow in the first 9 months. As I said, we -- the performance of the third quarter has been really remarkable. You have to understand also that in the third quarter, we accounted for the cost of the Champions League. That clearly is something that we didn't have 1 year ago. But as I said, the performance of the quarter is clearly strong. In terms of guidance for full year. Clearly, visibility remains very short in the terms of revenue. So we are keeping some flexibility also on the cost side. In any case, our base case scenario, it's EUR 1.720 billion cost for the full year. Clearly, we will have again some sort of variability that is mainly due to variable cost that can move in relation to the performance of the remaining 45 days of the year. And moving to the quarter, again, Page 18, you have a clear, let's say, representation of what happened in terms of quarter performance. And you can appreciate that, thanks to the increase of EUR 15.1 million and saving of cost of EUR 35.7 million, the quarter has reached an end improvement of more than EUR 50 million. So again, the clear example of a great -- one of the best quarter in terms of profitability of the recent years in Mediaset. Moving down in the P&L below the EBIT line. The financial charges is negative for a little bit less than EUR 1 million. Clearly, the comparison with last year is affected by the fact that ProSieben has not paid any dividends this year while they did it last year. Regarding the associates, on the other hand, clearly, these are money that are mainly coming from the 40% of the EI Towers stake -- the 40% of EI Towers stake. In terms of guidance, in that perspective, we can tell you that financial charges and associates for the full year will be in the region of EUR 20 million combined. Clearly, financial charges will be affected by the currency exchange rates on dollar, but that's our best estimate. Then moving to investments, Page 20. I mean you can see the performance of the 9 months. But more importantly, I believe we can guide you on the full year on a total investment of EUR 390 million. That's clearly including the big blockbuster we launched at the beginning of the year. So that's already in the actual numbers, but a EUR 390 million guidance. That represents a decline of 7% compared to last year investment numbers. Moving to cash flow. Free cash flow from core activities reached a level of more than EUR 115 million in the 9 months with a remarkable improvement versus last year, almost 55%, and again, showing the ability of the company to generate cash. You can see in the equity investment line the increase in the ProSieben stake that you already appreciated in the first 6 months, let's say, results. And the level of adjusted net financial position is a little bit higher than EUR 800 million, excluding the financial liability and the debt arising from ProSiebenSat.1. And for the full year, we confirm that we are expecting a group net debt adjusted-to-EBITDA ratio to be lower than 1x. I believe that now it's turned for you -- for your question and -- so the Q&A session could start now.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Richard Eary from UBS.

Just 3 questions from myself. The first one is that you talked about expectations for the full year. I sort of missed that on -- you mentioned something like minus 14.5% relative to the 16.9%. I presume that was related to the 9- number, but I just wanted to see whether you can clarify that in terms of how we should think about Q4. I presume that October has been positive. But within that environment, you're maybe cautious on November and December. So clarity on that would be great. The second question just comes with regard to MEDIAFOREUROPE. Just give us an update in terms of where we are in that process and what potential options are going to come through? And then just the last question just with regard to ProSieben. Any updates in terms of your position in ProSieben and the potential expiry of put and call options in November?

Yes. Rick, I'll start from the latter. What we can say is that we are long-term shareholder in ProSieben. And as I said in the presentation, our formal position and substantial position has not changed in the quarter and even after the quarter. So we can confirm that we have secured more sort of up to 24.9% of the voting share of the company. And as I said, I mean, our position, it's a long-term position and we are not going to change it. As far as the financial structure. As for the last call, we are not going to disclose any state on that. The only thing that I can say is that there are -- I mean there are not going to be any changes by the year-end. So everything will be exactly as it is and it was at the end of the quarter. The other, let's say, question was regarding MFE. I mean the only thing that I can say is that we can confirm that we are fully delivered in the European consolidator -- sorry, consolidation process. The fact that what has happened in the 9 months of 2020 has just confirmed the need for scale in any kind of our activity. And we are, as I said before and repeating, delivery in the European consolidation process. The technical way in which this will happen, clearly, is not only up to us and we have no news on that. And as soon as we are going to have it, clearly, we will say. But for time being, the only thing that we can say is that we are still of the same view and everything has been confirmed in the last month. And clearly, we are more, if you want, focused on the short term, really in the results we showed. I mean the long -- the medium- and the long-term idea has not changed. And as soon as we will have news, we will tell you. Matteo, probably...

Okay. Yes. Thank you, Marco. And I thank you for the questions, so it gives me the opportunity to clarify on our Q3 -- Q4, sorry, and fiscal year expectation. I repeat, the Q3 performance contributed to the 9-month results at minus 16.9%. And the good news is that Q4 started well, brought in line with September that was slightly better than flat. So the advertising trend mathematically is improving further. So as of today, and when I say as of today, I mean, I have already on end the whole till 14th of November, so next Saturday, the cumulated performance of advertising collection starting from the beginning of the year and compared to the same period of the last year. So from the 1st of January to half of November is minus 14.5%. So the point is it's a very good result because we have a 10% improvement compared to H1. And our ambition is to keep on improving this performance unless there are sudden changes in the scenario. But what I want to share with you is that the situation is completely different from the Q2 situation from the March situation. March was a mostly unexpected shot. A lockdown decision taken overnight during the first weekend of May. Business companies advertising were not prepared. Some of them, they were in an unexpected situation. While today, it is a completely different situation. We are in front of an expected event. The introduction of restriction is announced with enough time to adjust. It's gradual, it's managed. It's, I would say, quite well communicated. So advertising reacted not canceling, but simply adjusting their plans. But as of today, we are in a business-as-usual situation where you have some postponement, some campaigns that are anticipated. And the net balance is a positive one as of today. Of course, that there is a rational cautious outlook because it may happen that in the forthcoming weeks, there are further restrictions or worsening of the situation. The situation may change to some extent, but we don't expect a March situation as a benchmark. And that is why we don't expect the cumulated performance we have up to now to worsen. And we -- our aim is to improve as far as we can the minus 14.5% we had on end as of today. Hope to have answered quite clearly. Thank you.

Matteo, can I just -- sorry, just one further clarity question. When you say that Q4 is -- when you said slightly better than flat, is that up until the 14th of November? I presume that's the case, isn't it?

When I say that it is slightly better than flat, that it is on the same line as September. So a very low single digit, but it's above the flat line. So that's the cumulated performance of October and the first half of November and it is in line with September. So the last, let's say, 3 months, September, October, the first half of November, they look quite close to each other. So with some good weeks, some weeks that are a little bit tougher, but the net balance is a positive one. And the interesting thing is that as far of today -- as of today, we never received any drastic change in advertising plans we have, on end, for the remaining part of November while, of course, we don't have the visibility on December. So that is why we stay cautious, but with some reasonable -- with some strong reason to say, we are not again in front of something like March -- experience in March.

And how much -- I presume the Champions League impact was just the catch-up gains in third quarter? Or is -- as we get...

Yes, yes, yes. No. I really thank you for this question because Champions League is definitely a positive drivers. We have already, on end, the same revenue we got last year in autumn and there is still room for further improvement. It was a positive driver during summertime and it is a positive driver also in Q4. And the interesting thing about Champions League is that it's one of the few things that allows you to, let's say, to have some -- to gain some visibility into advertising plans at least of those companies that invest in Champions League that are part of -- a good part of our top spenders. So it works very well as a sort of early indicator because if you have already, on end, money for the Champions League till the beginning of December, it thinks that we don't know how much but there are advertising plans for December for those advertisers. So a positive contribution in terms of revenue collection and a positive contribution in order to have insight on advertisers' plans.

Your next question comes from the line of Julien Roch from Barclays.

My first question is on Page 11. Could you first explain what is TVC and OLV? And then second, can we have the actual minutes for the 3 categories in the first 9 months of 2020 rather than just a year-on-year increase? That's my first question. And then can we have a broad breakdown of your total advertising between linear TV, radio and digital advertising, other full year '19 or 9 months '20? That's my second question. And then the third is on MFE. Marco, you said you believed in consolidation, that you would update us once things have been negotiated. But would you feel invasively happy with an MFE 2 without the special voting rights because it seems that the thing that killed the deal in the first place was a special voting rights. So would you feel invasively happy to do the deal with that special voting rights?

No. Maybe I'll start from the latter. Frankly, we didn't understand exactly what went wrong, frankly, because clearly I don't know if you follow, I mean, the movement of Italian company to Holland, we saw special voting rights more aggressive than ours that went through. But I mean I'm not here to question on that. I believe that when Fininvest voted in favor for MFE, has clearly stated that they were ready to, let's say, leave the full control of Mediaset S.p.A. that is the current situation, where, clearly, the company is not containable to a company that actually would be containable because their position would have been clearly lower, and that clearly, someone else would have taken over the company clearly through a tender offer, something that clearly today is not possible in Italy. So I believe, and it is what I saw, Fininvest has already decided to, let's say, to be less in control to have a larger company or to be less in control to have a growth project. So I don't think that they will change their mind also in the future because, as I said, what happened in the last 9 months had just confirmed that we need scale. We -- as broadcaster, we need scale. So I don't think that their position has really moved in the last 9 months. Matteo, probably the first 2 questions.

Yes, yes. I wrote it down. It takes months about Julien questions. So -- but please remind me if I skip anything. So with regard to Chart #11, so TVL states for linear television. TVC states for connected television. So smart television that are fit for -- not only for broadcast, but also for broad bundle. And OLV states for online videos on digital screens. So the 3 of them represent the whole universe of our total video offer. Here, you have, let's say, audience KPI. So they are different KPIs, but you have the average minute rating for linear television. The viewers in digital screens and volume of on-demand consumption on connected television. The meaning of the picture is that on top of the growth of linear TV consumption we experienced, and this is definitely a very positive news growth, both in digital screens and connected TV consumption of our TV content, that practically means further additional inventory for our sales. And this further additional capabilities was mostly captured by our digital and connected TV revenues because the connected TV offer that was a very innovative one keep on growing completely unaffected by the COVID crisis. So advertisers are getting more and more used to this offer and this is complementary on top of linear television. And the same on -- with regard to digital. We experienced a very high double-digit growth in digital. So these 2 components of total video were contributing to the whole business. While with regard to radio, I can share qualitatively with you that radio, for sure, among -- in our addressable perimeter, it was the most affected medium in terms of depth, length and strength of the crisis. But the good news is that in September, October, they were above the parity. So the recovery was completed. So we have all our 3 media in good health. And the other qualitative things I can have is that in Q3, compared to each media segment, with our performance in TV, digital and radio was on average or above market average. So hope to have answered, and in case, I move to the next question.

Yes. Okay. Can I come back just quickly. So on Page 11, the 3 bars are actually different metrics. Can you -- do you have the total video metrics? So do you have a common metric to the 3 like, for instance, ITV and ProSieben give us total minutes across the 3. Do you have that? Or at the moment, you don't actually have a total video KPI and you still have 3 different metrics? That's my first follow-up question. And my second follow-up question is can you give us a broad sense of the split, say, in full year '19 between linear advertising, radio and digital advertising. I mean are we talking about, I don't know, 85 linear, 10 radio, 5 digital? Some indication of the this will be great.

Okay. With regard to the total visual -- total video, sorry, measurement and the unique currencies, we are a strong supporter of our Joint Industry Committee, Auditel, that is striving to deliver a unified currency for total video in the next 18 months. So we're working with them to have this currency by 2022. The interesting thing that we do expect in 2021 to have individual data for digital stream consumption. And in that case, it will be easier to create a common metrics, a proxy currency, for the total video. So in this case, we are linked to our total audience measurement by -- delivered by Auditel. With regard to the split. Of course, more than 90% is our legacy business while the remaining part, it's radio, digital and connected television offer. So this is the best I can share with you today.

Your next question comes from the line of Sarah Simon from Berenberg.

I've got a couple of questions. First one was, can you just give us an idea of, a, whether you've had government support in terms of -- on the cost side with employee costs and obviously that will disappear? And also, any -- the quantum of restructuring costs that you've incurred in 2020 so far? Second question would be on EI Towers. There was news of an approach for the telecom portfolio earlier in the year. I'm wondering if you can give us any update on what's happening there because it's obviously a large asset that's probably not properly reflected in the P&L? And the third question was just on Q4, can you give us an idea of how big December is in terms of, in a normal year, what the percentage of advertising collection would be for December as a percentage of Q4?

So Sarah, starting from the first question. Actually, we used some help from the government in April -- April and May, probably, in any case, first half. I would say that the range of the help we got mainly for people that were staying at home, it's in the region of EUR 1 million or EUR 2 million. Since then, actually, we found their help not actually usable because clearly, if you get the help with you, then you have some rigidity and restriction on other, let's say, components. We worked strictly with the unions and with the people, with personnel, to reduce as much as possible the cost. And actually, the savings we are getting on personnel cost is really coming through efficiency work and really flexibility was, let's say, we were able to imply. As I said, the financial health was really limited in the first weeks where actually we were not ready to work differently. As far as the layoff, and what I can say, let's say, layoff in personnel -- extraordinary cost of labor are very close to last year numbers. So in that respect, we don't have any major changes in the 9 months. As far as EI Towers, on the other hand, we read on the newspaper something close to what you asked. Frankly, we didn't have any news on that. EI Towers is performing very well. It's clearly pursuing their strategic objective. And as far as we know, there are no news on, let's say, consolidation or M&A side for the time being so.

Okay. And December?

Matteo, would you...

Yes, yes, yes. As you know, we don't give, let's say, insight on each single month. The only thing I can share with you is the fact that, historically, Q4 is made of 3 equivalent months, more or less.

Your next question comes from the line of Fabio Pavan from Mediobanca.

Yes. First of all, congratulations for the results. On the question side, a follow-up on the advertising. If I understood properly, we can argue your strong differentiating factor, which has allowed digital perform in the market, was also a mix between audience but new and more aggressive commercial policies. And please confirm if I'm right or wrong? Again, on advertising, you can see some sectors, which may be most exposed to potential correction case, further restrictions may be implemented. And the second question refers to the European consolidation. My question for Marco is, do you have the feeling that some European broadcaster may be more keen to consider consolidation given the challenging outlook?

Thank you, Fabio, for the congratulation. I believe that it has been a great result for the people that are working for Mediaset. So thank you. Thank you for that. As far as, let's say, European consolidation, I believe that the difficulties we are facing due to COVID is clearly making us more thinking on the short term and I believe it would be the same also in the other, let's say, broadcaster throughout Europe. And as you know, we are part of European Media Alliance that is collecting more than 10 broadcasters throughout Europe. And I believe that the challenges in the sector are even more, let's say, evident today than it was 1 year ago. I don't know what the other broadcasters are thinking about that. But I mean certainly, the evidence we are getting out of this table is that either we find a collective reaction or clearly the growth for the future will be very difficult to be achieved. As far as the rest, we don't have any other, say, evidence. Matteo, probably -- it's up to you for the first 2 questions.

Yes, yes. I address, first -- thank you, Fabio, for the question. I address first the question with regard to sectors. I said that probably the swing in sectors, try to use an analogy with the recent U.S. election, could be the automotive one. Of course, because if there are further restriction, it may be affected even if the wait on December, as you can imagine, is limited on this sector. That could be the higher variance. While with regard to other sectors, we are quite confident. And then coming back to another part of your question. What I want to restate that the interesting thing about our media mix offer is that it has a good balance between legacy and innovative businesses. This is very well appreciated by the market. That is why I say advertisers keep on investing in our digital and connected TV offer. And the things I want to remark is the fact that these nonlinear innovative components of businesses keep on growing in our total mix offer, both in terms of audience and in terms of revenues. And that's it. And I don't know if we are finished or -- whether we are finished or not our time. I hand over to Simone.

Well, if there are no further questions, I thank you, everybody, for joining us today. And as always, we are available for any further question you may have. Thank you very much, and have a good day. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.