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

Good day and welcome to the Mediaset 2021 First Half Results Web Phone Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Sara Bersan. Please go ahead, madam.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first half 2021 Results of Mediaset. Today the speakers are Marco Giordani, CFO of the Company; and Matteo Cardani, Managing Director of PubItalia. Given the restriction of time, I will hand over immediately to the speakers. Matteo, please go ahead.

Thank you, Sara. Good morning, everybody. So today, we comment H1 results with a short outlook on current trading. Starting from the economic scenario. I'm commenting chart #3. With regard to confidence index indicators, the monthly evolution shows a continuous gradual improvement of the economic scenario, and we will underline that since April, we are definitely in the positive field, both for consumers and business. This important soft indicator is, of course, strictly confirmed by hard indicators. As you can see in the following chart, #4, you can see that consumption and investment, consumption in services and goods are growing fast, and they are recovering the level of 2019. And if we move to gross domestic product dynamics, the [indiscernible] variation of GDP in Q2 are both positive, and moreover, the 2021 forecast is in a positive range. There are different forecasts ranging between 4.5%, 5.0% growth year-on-year and a similar growth rate expectation is also gaining consensus for 2022, due also to the recovery plan. So these are just a short look on macroeconomic indicators, and if we move to the advertising market in chart #5, you can -- H1 '21 indicators are all positive. In particular, for our addressable market segments, the recovery is really solid and robust. TV and Digital are respectively in line and above 2019 levels, while radio is still below, but fastly recovering and catching up. I'm talking about the market. And if I move from the market to our performance, so I'm commenting chart #6, in this positive recovery scenario, Mediaset is outperforming the market by 5 points in growth trend. Our growth is 31.7% versus 26.7% and this positive spread delivers a total increase in market share, reaching the highest level of H1 market share. We are up 42.1%, and we are growing by 1.5 points versus a year ago. The interesting thing is that, the overall result has been achieved with a double-digit positive contribution of all 3 media, TV, radio and digital are all growing at double-digit rate. So the important thing commenting this chart, as you can see also from the absolute number, you see that the total advertising collection in H1 '21, recover the baseline level of H1 '19. So this is definitely a big achievement. And the interesting point is that the Q3 performance is expected to be positive and I'm commenting this with a look at the chart #7, where you can see that we have 4 quarters in a row -- 4 positive quarters in a row. Of course, the Q2 performance is, to some extent, totally outstanding, fully recovering the downside in Q2 '20. The interesting thing, is that we are still progressing over to Q3 and September is the most important month in the quarter. We are mid-September. But I anticipate that Q3 will be the fifth positive quarter in a row, and it's important to underline the fact that we are achieving this result, despite some discontinuities in the market competition related to football that affected the quarter in 2021. In fact, in Q3 2021, we didn't have of course, the Euro championship and the Olympics. But last year, we had the final matches of Champion League that were postponed to August. While this year, we have this counter digit. So notwithstanding these 3, let's say, negative factors or negative drivers, we can confirm that in 9 months, we will be slightly above the 2019 level. So the performance will be around [ 2% ] year-on-year growth in 9 months, '21 versus 9 months '19. So the baseline we are considering. I go to the last part of my presentation, with a quick reminder about the main drivers of our performance. So total audience and total video growth and the dynamics of the economic sectors. I'm commenting chart #8. As you can see, total audience and total video are strongly growing for the second year in a row, with remarkable results last in 2019. So we are in the lucky position, where we are combining the strength of linear TV, that is above the baseline level in 2019, with a growth rate of the nonlinear assets, so connected television, mobile desktop, and this creates a strategic advantage, where it protects the business, increasing the revenue diversification towards a solid digital mix. Commenting the following chart, #9, Mediaset linear TV audience share is 34.5%, aligned to the same level of 2019. While the digital nonlinear audience share performance certified by Auditel is even higher, we are almost. So we have a solid leadership both in linear and in digital screen in the broadcaster arena. Last but not the least, the sector dynamics, commenting chart #10 the following ones; with regard to sector dynamics, we have been using this 3R scheme, the resilient, starting with restrictive sectors. We adopted this scheme since the very beginning of the pandemic, and it proved to be an effective device to understand the dynamics of the crisis quarter-by-quarter. As you can appreciate in Q2, and therefore, H1, as you can see in chart #11, finally, the so-called restrictive sectors definitely reached resilience. Restarting sectors in the positive green area. After the easing of major restriction at the beginning of May, thanks to the evolution of the vaccination campaign, those sectors are travel, tourists, foodchain, leisure, time services, [indiscernible] advertising key on and started to invest in a high double-digit rate to recover as much as possible, the baseline sales. The last chart, the chart #12, highlights the fact that on top of this [indiscernible] situation, our structural solidity is also due to the fact that we have a market share -- above our market leverage in all key sectors, that represents the backbone of our advertising market. So this is my presentation regarding the advertising part of our conference call. And I hand over to Marco for the financial part. Thank you.

Thank you, Matteo. Good morning also from my side to all. Clearly, I'll take you through the first half consolidated results first. If you flip to page 14, you will see the highlights, group level. and you can see easily, that the group EBIT has been close to EUR 200 million in the first half 2021. More than 6x higher than last year, that's clearly understandable. Looking at last year, let's say, first half bad situation. But I would like also to underline the fact that, group EBIT is even higher than '19 one, by almost 4%. So that's really remarkable. Moving down to the net profit. We closed the first half with EUR 226.7 million profit, more than double compared to '19. Again, I don't think it's important to underline the differences with 2020. You know that in the first half, we accounted an extraordinary contribution of EUR 86.7 million, deriving from the sale of towers by EI Towers, that's something that has been already disclosed to the market in May. But in any case, excluding these extraordinary items, the group net profit would have been 36% higher than '19’s level. That's clearly the best, I believe, effect of the good management of revenue and cost at group level. Moving down to group financial position, the debt at the end of June was EUR 732 million debt, with a very remarkable cash generation during the 6 months. And actually, we moved down from a debt of EUR 1.064 billion to, as we said, EUR 730 million debt, with a cash generation that has been really remarkable as well. As you can see from the chart, the group net financial position for covenant purposes is EUR 222 million debt. And that's clearly, again, the proof of a solid balance sheet, with an improvement of EUR 350 million, in respect to the end of 2020. Moving to page 15. Clearly, Matteo has already explained the advertising performance in Italy, and looking at the Italian P&L, and started to [ comment ] the other revenue line. We registered EUR 123 million other revenue. As you know, 2021, for this line will be affected by phasing, as you know. But this phasing are more related on one side from -- for the theatrical revenue that are clearly missing in the first half of 2021, whilst last year was present at least for the first few months. And secondly, because as you remember, in November last year, we sold our own shopping business and that clearly, let's say, a revenue that are no more present in 2021 numbers. On the other side, in the second half of 2021, there will be the Champions League streamed by Infinity, there will be contribution from representation fee and other revenue coming from content sales. So that we can confirm the guidance for the other revenue line for full year 2021, in line with [ 2011 ]. Moving down in the cost part, you can appreciate the total cost in the first half of 2021 was EUR 869 million with a pretty important reduction of more than 10% compared to 2019. Clearly, again, I'm not comparing 2021 with 2020 for clear reasons, but it's important for us to keep this efficiency pace. We are proved to execute in the first half and as far as the guidance, we are confirming the guidance on total cost to a level of EUR 1.780 billion. This guidance is including also the cost for Coppa Italia rights, Italian [ CASA ] that clearly has been bought in July, and was not present at budget level. But again, we will be able to maintain our total cost for the full year, within the guidance we gave last time we met. These numbers, this total cost of EUR 1,780 million, will represent 6% less than the 2019 number. And that's again a reapproval of the financial discipline. Lastly, on page 15, I would like to comment the EBIT margin, that is a level that the company has not reached since 2011. So it's almost 10 years that we are not reaching this level of profitability at EBIT level. Moving down below EBITDA on slide #16. I mean, no big surprise. Everything is going on as foreseen. As far as financial income, we can confirm the guidance we gave in line, broadly with 2019. And on associated, we confirm the guidance of EUR 110 million. I'm not commenting the first half result, because more or less are similar to the last year one, and the extraordinary elements in these 2 lines has already been disclosed in previous communication. Moving to page 17 on the CapEx. Again, cash discipline has been confirmed. The numbers of the first half is pretty low. It's lower than 2020 by almost EUR 100 million. Again, we are facing some phasing, let's say, effect from first half and second half, so that we can confirm our guidance for CapEx for the full year, declining by 15%, 20% versus '19, to a level around EUR 350 million in total. That performance of revenue and cost control and cash discipline take us to the cash flow statement on Page 18, on Slide 18, where you can appreciate that the result has been really impressive. In the first half, we generated more than EUR 300 million of cash flow from operation, a level that is more than double than last year and better by 30% roughly than 2019. Lastly, I would like to comment the target on net financial position. You know that after closing the first half, we have distributed EUR 342 million of dividend. So clearly, the net financial position in the 9 months, let's say, accounts will then report also this cash outflow. But we can confirm that by the year-end, the ratio between net debt and EBITDA will stay below 1x as previously guided. I have completed my part and so that now I believe that we can leave you the room for the Q&A session. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] We are taking our first question from Julien Roch from Barclays.

Two questions for Matteo, one for Marco. Matteo, can we get July and August advertising trends, because you already have the number. And when you say that the 9 months would be slightly above 2019, do you mean 1% above, 2% above or 3% above. So some color on Q3. Then coming back on Page 9, what is the 39.9% number? Is it your audience of nonlinear, which would be above the audience of linear at 34.5%, or is 39.9% your combined audience of linear and nonlinear, and if linear is 34.5%, or nonlinear is 5.4%. So that's 2 questions for Matteo. And then for Marco, I assume you're still very bullish or you still very much want to do consolidation. But if I look at the list of people that you can talk to, I actually don't see anybody in Europe, because TF1 and M6 are busy merging, and they're not going to know whether they can merge until June next year. So they won't speak to you until then. ITV, well, there's Brexit, but also the government really seems keen on privatizing Channel 4 and ITV has a good chance of having that. So they -- I don't see they are speaking to you either. RT, as I said we don't believe in Pan-European consolidation, only in-market consolidations. They are not really speaking to you either. So among linear player in Europe, we're kind of left with ProSieben, and then if we look at U.S. players, I think they're concentrating on launching the S-Video for not going into linear in Europe. So I'd like to know whether you think, why somebody speaks to you in terms of consolidation, or what could happen over the next 6 months.

Sorry, I was on mute. A typical COVID side effect, you are always in mute during conference no, sorry. I'm answering the 2 questions raised by Julien Roch. I start from this one, so the clarification about the chart #9, regarding our audience performance. The 2 numbers are not -- you cannot accumulate the 2 numbers because the 34.5% is the linear TV share measured by Auditel, and the 39.9% is our digital nonlinear share, always measured by Auditel, but for the time being, they are 2 separate currencies, and that we are looking for to the total audience measurement next year. So the hope is next year to have the possibility to accumulate the total audience results. Anyway, we are leading both separate arena. With regarding to Q3, just to add more, let's say, more color on Q3 performance. As you know, we don't comment on each single month. What I can share with you, is that notwithstanding the fact that the very important sport event, so the Euro Football championship and the Olympics were the sport rights were in the hands of our competitor and that we didn't have the positive contribution of Champions League in August. The performance of the summer months, June, July and August was always positive. So we start the last month of Q3 on this solid base. And as anticipated, Q3 is expected to be positive. So implying a 1% year-on-year growth in 9 months '21 versus 9 month 2019. So this is our expectation. We are mid-September, and it should be considered a solid expectation. And then if you want to extend, let's say, this perspective to the fiscal year, of course, the performance will depend on Q4. However, at this stage, we don't have clear visibility on Q4. It is worth remarking the fact that the quarter, both as you can see in Chart #7, both Q3 and Q4 in year '20, were definitely positive quarter. So 4.6% Q3 and 3.5% Q4. So we are, let's say, benchmarking ourselves with a positive semester last year. And so Q4, for sure, will be tougher compared to 9 months because Q4 is an important quarter, the most important in the year. In 2020, it was already plus 3.5% above Q4 '19. But we are, let's say, confident because we have also -- and this is a positive difference of stronger football offer in our advertising portfolio, greatly appreciated by our advertiser. As you know, football is a typical forward buying, forward selling factor, and it helps us to address special targets. So let me say that in the current context, our basic scenario is to achieve the 1% year-on-year growth in fiscal year '21, versus fiscal year '19, consistently with the expected 9 month '21 performance. So hope to have fully addressed both questions. And in case, I hand over to Marco.

Julien, I mean, first of all, maybe it's important to repeat, let's say, where we stand. It's already a couple of years in which we said largely, I would say that consolidation in traditional media will happen in Europe. I think that the last 2 years has just confirmed it. We never said that our project would be the one that will succeed. But that clearly we will see with our bet. But I mean, clearly, we cannot pretend to be sure 100% about that. But I mean we are pretty sure that consolidation will happen. And clearly, Mediaset starts from a very good point in any case. So being active or passive in this process, being the controlling shareholder in Spain, mathematical controlling shareholder. And we are the largest shareholder in ProSieben. So we believe that, that's -- it's already good news for our shareholders because the company is well placed to play a role in this consolidation. Then moving to, let's say, your comment on the other operator, let's say, which probably you have contacted. I can tell you that it is clear that all the traditional media managers are reluctant to participate to the consolidation process. Why? Because clearly, seats will be lesser than it is today. So whatever manager you can talk to, they are structurally and naturally against consolidation. Different perception you get if you talk to shareholders. And I would be very surprised that shareholders will tell, let's say, to anybody what their, let's say, intention before, let's say, really striking deals, or I would be very surprised to see a comment confirming talks to us or to others. So the only thing that I can say is that, we are receiving every day interest from financial and industrial, let's say, investor in traditional media, trying to assess where we are, what's the reason behind our, let's say, strategy in our ideas. And I can confirm that the interest is growing, it's not declining. And frankly, we don't see anybody from the ones that are investing in media, that are thinking that, staying local and small will be more fruitful, than trying to be large and European. So that's the only comment that I can make. We will see. We will certainly announce the things only when they will be done, not before. But I can confirm that our position is the same. Consolidation in media, in traditional media in Europe will happen.

Our next question comes from Fabio Pavan from MediBanca.

Yes. Congratulations for the results. I have a couple of questions for Matteo. When looking at Q4, do you think that normalization in the audience with the overall number of viewers lower than last year, given the reopenings, may represent risk, or do you believe that consumption trend, which remains strong, will support the positive trend. For Marco, follow-up on the European project, pan European project, today, local press was mentioning potential interest for Mediaset [indiscernible] Greek assets. Can you provide a comment on that? And also, we know that starting from next Saturday, the legal headquarter will move to the Netherlands. So we could expect -- we may expect something concrete on a pan-European consolidation to happen before year-end.

Okay. Thank you for your questions. It's absolutely interesting and give me opportunity to give more, let's say, understanding about the market we are facing. You're right. The normalization of audience in Q4 is a key point, because last year due to COVID restrictions, we benefited, let's say, from a sort of captive audience, and this definitely drove the Q4 results. But I'd say that there are 3 positive factors that should be considered in this perspective. The first thing is that, we are dealing and managing the counter digit in audience since the, let's say, the very beginning of this year. So mainly Q2 and Q3, with the reduction in social restrictions. We are managing with the market year-on-year comparisons of the audience -- total audience results. The good thing to know is that, we successfully managed to recover the deflation prices, that all the TV players suffered from last year. But this was a sort of, let me say, of gentlemen agreement among the market players. So clients, agencies and media owners not to speculate on the last year discontinuities, and to move towards normalization of the market, in terms of mid-inflation. So this is the first point. The second point, as we mentioned, for sure, the consumption trend and the fundamental trends are stronger than any, let's say, counter digit in audiences. So businesses, companies are looking for the consumers, and so we are going to expect this upward trend in the macroeconomic variables to sustain the advertising demand. And then the last but not the least, you are looking for [ eyeballs ], but eyeballs are not made equal. I mean there's a precious target audience, that is the so-called light TV viewers, mainly men, 50 to 60 years old, medium, upper plus. And this is the precious target segment for many sectors like automotive, financial, telcos and so on. And we are in stronger position compared to last year, because we have strengthened and reached our advertising offer related to football. We are in a very strong position with the 3 most important football competition, the Champions League, we already had the past year. We also purchased the spot rights for Coppa Italia TIM Cup, and last but not least, Serie A, so thanks to the sales agent [ mandate ] from the zone to our sales account, Digitalia, we have, let's say, the best in class portfolio of football -- football for club in our markets. And we do think that it will be a key driver for our revenue collection, because it offer -- address to all those economic sectors, targeting these precious clusters. And this segment is absolutely complementary to the target segment. We already exceptionally, reach through our [indiscernible] production. So the 3 factors combined, so inflation trend in media prices, consumption trend, plus other football offer, should compensate for the normalization of all those issues you raised before. Thank you again, and I hand over to Marco.

So Fabio, as I said to Julien, we are not willing to create an expectation at all. Clearly, let us working and we will announce deal only once they will be done, not certainly before. Clearly, rumors will appear, that's part of the game and certainly, we are not going to comment them every time that a journalist says something, otherwise it will be pretty difficult to react to any kind of rumor. As far as the headquarter movement to Holland, as you know, because we always said it's important, it's important for the future of the company, and I can confirm it. But cannot be considered the first step of anything, and as I said, once that deal will be signed and reached, we will announce it. We don't want to create expectations before that moment. Thank you.

The next question comes from Sarah Simon from Berenberg.

Just one question. So you've obviously done very well out of EI Towers selling the telecoms part of the business. Is the game plan now essentially to wait, until you can consolidate the residual business with Rai, or -- and then some kind of an exit at that point? How do you feel -- do you feel it's necessary strategically to still own the stake, or is this more about thinking that you can create more value still from what's left?

Sarah, I mean, we were always in favor of a consolidation between Rai Way and EI towers. If you remember, it's already 4 years, probably, I don't know exactly. It's in any case, a long time when we try to be active in that process and for many reasons, we were stopped. In any case, industrially speaking, the merger or the combination, it's certainly rational and value-enhancing for all the stakeholders. Having said that, as you know, we are minority shareholders in EI Tower, so we are not really managing the company. What I can tell you is that the company, is in any case, following their strategic plan, they are creating value, and we are happy with the performance of the company. And as far as our position versus the participation, as we said, we will stay, until we don't see the complete valorization of the stake, and we believe that the Italian environment today, it's a little bit more in favor for the consolidation than before, but that's just, if you want, a sensation we got from around the country, but certainly from Rome -- as we got from Rome. But I mean we support the company in that process, and we will favor certainly any integration projects that the management will provide to us. So we are certainly positive in that respect.

We are now moving to Stefano Gamberini from Equita.

Two questions from my side. The first, regarding Spain, in the previous MSE project, you started with a proposal of merger between Mediaset and Mediaset Espana. So what is now the view that you have in a consolidation for Spain, and what is the role of this company that you control, also on the side of savings that you also set for the previous MSE deal? The second, regarding the possible say -- sorry, the change of the TV sector load that should happen shortly by the government, some rumors that underline that there could be a cut of ceiling for advertising collection for Rai and as a consequence and advantage for the other operators. So what is the net impact that you expect at the end of the day from this law and advantage for the commercial TV or not? And the third one regarding the OpEx, despite the cut of 10% in the first 9 months, you still keep the full year guidance with a 6% cut on 2020 -- on 2019. What could you expect on 2022? What I mean is, are there some inflation, significant inflation that we can experience next year?

Grazie, Stefano. Let's start from Spain. You resumed exactly what we did and clearly, I don't want to comment again. Maybe it's important to repeat the fact that the merger has been blocked by Spanish Tribunal and court in Italy, and Spain during the COVID emergency, let's call it, [indiscernible] had issued emergency law, regarding listed companies. So technically speaking, we don't think it's the right moment to do anything, because of these 2 elements. And so I can tell you that we are not working on anything like that currently because, as I said, the external conditions are not providing a positive environment versus the merger. But having said that, Spain and Mediaset Espana, share the view we have in consolidation. They are active in that and you know that they bought some [ proxy ] share as well. So they are exactly aligned with our view regarding the future and that's clearly is also reaffirming the fact that Mediaset Espana will be part of the consolidation as well. But as I said before, clearly, for the time being, we have nothing to announce, and we don't want to create expectations in that respect. But I would like to repeat that the formal legal and regulatory environment today in Spain, it's suggesting us to move. As things will change, certainly, we will consider the situation in the future. Moving to the [indiscernible] or the draft law, let's call it in this way, that has been in discussion in these days. It's a pretty large draft law, that is clearly not only, let's say, regarding Rai, but as you know, being a draft, it's better to wait, because clearly, making calculation on providing expectation on draft law in Italy is pretty difficult. So I will wait to make -- I will await the final law before commenting anything, because I believe that it is completely not useful to do it before -- being the discussion already ongoing. As far as 2022 cost line, we don't see specific inflation on costs, but it's true that the budget will be -- the budget exercise will start probably at the end of this month. So it's very early to say anything precise. As you know, I mean, the conference in November can guide you a little bit more on that. As I told you, I mean, we are in the middle of the transition we started many years ago to moving away from purchase of TV rights. Clearly, that's also -- you can see it and you can appreciate it also from the first half results, moving the investment from purchase -- rights purchase to local exclusive and original content. And that's clearly proving also, looking at the audience and the digital performance to be effective, and that's something that will go on. In this, let's say, ship. For the time being, as I told you, we don't see total cost inflation. But there will be certainly some costs that we grow, because you can understand that we have variable cost variable to revenue cost in our total cost base. But I mean, the general statement for us is cost discipline. And we will create as much as possible a cash flow increase as we proved, [ it was done ] in the first half. That's our objective. So cash flow generation will be at the top of mind also for the next year budget. But as I told you, I cannot guide you anyway because the budget exercise has not started yet.

Just a quick clarification, if I understood well. 9 months advertising was -- target is up 1%. Did you spend also the same target for full year advertising or am I wrong?

It's up to me, Marco?

Sure.

Yes, you got it properly. So we have the same expectation, both for the 9 months progression and for the fiscal year progression compared to 2019 baseline, you're right, 1%.

And just to understand, why you expect a decline in the first quarter versus the first quarter '20 in advertising, more or less 4%, if I'm not wrong.

No, no, no. We don't have any expectation about the decline. As I remarked during the presentation, we are benchmarking ourselves versus 2 quarters, Q3 and Q4 that were already positive quarters last year. So I remind you, it's 4.6% for Q3 and 3.5% for Q4. So our expectation is to keep on in the positive progression. We have 5 quarters of positive progression. That is why we say, okay, we do expect to have the 9-month progression around 1% and then to maintain our performance in the positive area compared to what is the real benchmark that is 2019. You see this is a [indiscernible] motive for all our presentation, both for advertising and financial. We compare ourselves versus a normal year 2019 and compared to a normal year, we are saying that we are beating the baseline 2 years ago and fully recovering any loss, any damages due to COVID-19 in the year 2020. So we are positive on our progression in numbers.

Our next question comes from Richard Eary from UBS.

First 3 questions. Just first want clarity on the last one, just going back to [ NFE ]. Just going back to -- I just want to be clear on what you said on the advertising. Are you saying that the first 9 months, your expectation is to be 1% above 2019? Is that correct of which the 2019 base for the first 3 months was EUR 1.25 billion?

Yes, our expectation...

So the second question, just on the cost side. Just to clarify, you've got -- you're saying it's down 6% down from the 2019 level. Does that include the additional cost of the football cup that's come through or not? Or do we have to add that on?

No, no. It's including. So it's 6% down, including Coppa Italia.

So EUR 1.780 billion is the number that we should be thinking about, Marco.

Yes, EUR 1.780 billion, yes.

And just for clarity on numbers in terms of other revenue lines, is there anything that we should see happen in just third and fourth quarter that sees that number? Originally, I think you've guided to EUR 300 million, but I just want to be clear on that, whether that's still in line with your targets, which means that we are expecting a bigger fourth quarter.

Yes. I'm confirming that the target for the full year is to be very close to last year number. So the EUR 300 million you said. Clearly, in the first half, we were behind the market, let's say, out of it. And I explained the reason for it because we have -- we had some, let's say, like-for-like differences between 2021 and '20, mainly regarding 2020, which we had the first 2 months in which we launched 2 big blockbuster that clearly are -- they were not possible in the first half of 2021. And last year, we had also the sale of shopping activities carried out in November. These are 2 elements of the comparison that we clearly revert in the second half 2021. And in addition to that, we have other revenues that are going through in the second half 2021. And I meant the streaming of Champions League. We have some content resale. And so that's the reason for which -- and also some re-transmission fee that will come through and that will cause the fact that full year other revenue will be in line with last year one.

Just lastly on Media for Europe. From what you said, you're not going to -- I understand why you don't want to create any expectation and you announce a deal when a deal is done. But we can assume that a deal will be done in time. It's just a question of timing, stepping back away from the original idea of Media for Europe.

As I said, we are a full believer of the consolidation. Frankly, we cannot be 100% sure to be consolidator or consolidated. That's something that only the market will say. We will try to do our best to be large as possible. We, in the sense, Mediaset will try to be as largest as possible to grant the shareholders the maximum value of it because we consider size as a very important criteria in company's valuation, generally speaking. Clearly, deal has to be done before announcement. So -- and we are clearly working, and we can confirm that everything we are looking around is confirming that size is crucial. It's crucial more for revenue opportunity than for synergies. And that's the reason for which we try our best to pursue it. So that's the point. We are less in favor of a deal that will deliver synergies on cost because that's clearly easy for us to value, easy also to calculate the value that can generate. But strategically wise, we believe that traditional media in Europe will suffer for revenue growth missing. And so we need to build a platform that could grant revenue growth because otherwise, the size of the media company in Europe will go on in decline. That's part of the changes on the industry sector as far as we can see.

Marco, just to ask a follow-up with that. Is there -- are there any opportunities that may come out of the Warner Discovery merger that you see that may present other consolidation opportunities either in Italy or Germany?

I believe that Discovery at least, it's one of the European traditional media company that somehow will be part of the process then, as I said before. I don't know if Mediaset will be consolidator or consolidated. And I don't know whether Discovery -- well, Discovery stands. So that's clearly something you should ask to them. But I can confirm that Discovery is a European operator and clearly will be part of the consolidation of the market. I don't know which role they will take.

Thank you, Marco. Just I would like to add, let's say, an important, let's say, qualification to our statement with regard to 9 months and fiscal year progression. I repeat that our base case is to maintain, let's say, the positive speed in our progression around 1%, both in 9 months and in the fiscal year. Of course, this should be considered on your side as the base case. If the market is going better, of course, we will do our best, as usual, to track the market trend. So the important qualification in your analysis is to consider this as the base case. We are confident on our strength. And then let's see, in Q4, the market performance, and if this base case could be also improved to some extent. I thank you and I think I should hand over to Sara probably for the conclusion, if I'm not wrong.

Thank you, Matteo, and thank you, guys, for all the questions. We would like to thank you very much for taking the time for the conference call. And as always, we will be available for any questions or any information you would like to have. Have a great day. Bye-bye.

This will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect.