European TV and film giant Fremantle saw its revenue fall in the first nine months of this year.
Fremantle owner RTL Group released financial results on Monday, showing revenue fell 5.1% to 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) compared to the same period in 2024. RTL said the decline was mainly due to “lower revenues from the US” and a “cascading effect” offset by Fremantle’s acquisition of Death in Paradise production company Asacha Media Group in early 2024.
RTL added that the decline in revenue from the U.S. was “largely expected” as the first nine months of 2024 benefited from NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” spinoff “Fantasy League” (an eight-episode season).
Fremantle’s third-quarter 2025 revenue fell 4.5% to 447 million euros ($518 million), which RTL said was mainly due to a “reduced contribution” from Ascha.
But RTL is bullish on Fremantle’s recent successes and future growth, citing Fox’s recently ordered 12-episode Baywatch reboot, true crime series The Monsters of Florence topping the Netflix charts, the launch of reality competition format Pandora’s Box and the launch of the first-ever America’s Got Talent FAST channel.
The magazine claimed that Fremantle continues to target full-year revenues of €3 billion ($3.49 billion) over the medium term, alongside “acquisitions of small and medium-sized production companies, intellectual property and creative talent partnerships.”
Overall, content giant RTL has seen its 2025 profits revised downward by nearly 17% due to continued woes in the advertising environment.
“The German and French TV advertising markets did not gain as much momentum as expected in the second half of the year,” RTL said, lowering its full-year profit forecast from 780 million euros to 650 million euros and reducing full-year sales from about 6.45 billion euros to 6.05 billion euros.
