Eurosport International, the division of pan-European broadcaster Eurosport covering its activities outside its home territory of France, registered an 8.8-per-cent rise in operating profit to €65.2 million ($86.1 million) in 2011. Turnover increased by one per cent year-on-year to €367.9 million.
Owing to fewer major sporting events in 2011 than the previous year, Eurosport’s advertising revenue for the international division dropped by 4.1 per cent to €74.9 million. However, the fall was offset by a four-per-cent rise in subscription revenue due to a 7.6-per-cent increase in the number of customers. The channel is carried in the basic and sports tiers of pay-television offerings across Europe.
Eurosport International’s operating profit margin increased from 16.4 per cent in 2010 to 17.7 per cent in 2011, according to the annual figures provided by Eurosport’s parent company, French commercial broadcaster TF1.
“This excellent level of profitability is a result of the Eurosport group’s continuing tight control of overheads and programming costs, which in 2011 did not include any major sporting events,” Eurosport said.
The expansion of the Eurosport service in Russia, Poland and the UK helped to drive revenues, and its high-definition channel attracted five million new subscribers in 2011.
Eurosport 2’s subscriber base grew by 9.2 million to 57.1 million in 2011, largely driven by Mediterranean countries and Scandinavia, to generate a 48.3-per-cent increase in the channel’s audience in comparison with 2010.
“Audience figures for the Eurosport International channel fell sharply in the first quarter of 2011, due to the non-recurrence of the major sporting events screened in 2010,” the broadcaster said. “However, audiences recovered in the next three quarters thanks largely to cycling, tennis and snooker, and to expansion of the live offering.
Average audiences rose by three per cent over 2011 as a whole, despite “more intense competition from other sports channels and from some national general-interest channels.”
Eurosport was also distributed over the internet to a monthly average of 71,000 customers in 2011 – an 86.6-per-cent increase on 2010.
The Eurosport France pay-television channel’s subscriber base increased by 0.7 per cent to 7.7 million last year, but the broadcaster said that an increase in programming costs and a drop in advertising revenue had cut the domestic channel’s operating profit.