The increase came despite a 25.6-per-cent drop in advertising revenues, down to €47.4 million, as a result of the worsened economic climate. Subscription revenues rose year-on-year, driven by the launch of the Eurosport HD channel, which launched in May 2008 and now has four million paying subscribers, and Eurosport 2, which now has 38 million paying subscribers.
Lower overall revenues were also offset by optimising multimedia platform and media rights costs, cuts in administrative and overhead costs and the absence of hefty rights fees for Olympic programming.