Message from the Chief Executive Officer

In the document you are now reading, Atresmedia reviews the toughest year in its history. Nonetheless, drawing strength from a sense of purpose, from our strategy and from the talent of our people, we continued to serve society with quality entertainment and accurate news coverage.

The past year proved volatile in all spheres: healthcare, society, the economy, finance and politics. All of this shaped the media industry, which in any event had been undergoing major changes in recent years. In 2020, there was a huge shift in the advertising market and consumption habits. Society adapted to the constraints of the lockdown, a shrinking economy and new ways for people to relate to one another. An unprecedented decline in the economy led to the sharpest drop in GDP of the past 50 years. Advertising spend fell by 22% in the first few months of the year, and by 50% in April and May, when the lockdown was at its strictest. However, TV consumption bucked the downward trend of recent years, growing 8% year-on-year to an average of 240 minutes per day, per person.

Facing uncertainty and a weak economy, we were nonetheless able to respond swiftly and effectively. In the space of just a few months, our way of managing our people from day to day and our relationships with advertisers, shareholders and suppliers went through a major change. Yet at all times we ensured that Atresmedia people were safe, that our business could continue and that our strategic aims remained achievable.

We cannot take stock of our business and operational performance in such an exceptional year without turning the spotlight on our role as part of the wider community. First, as a media organisation, we kept society accurately informed and provided entertainment and initiatives with a positive message, such as our Un Gran País campaign, which encouraged people by reminding them of our society’s strengths and great potential. Secondly, we lent visibility to social causes that became all the more pressing in the midst of the pandemic. We helped mobilise aid to address emerging issues and difficulties. We continued to deliver on our commitment to job stability and employee safety. We made available all the healthcare measures required to enable our people to work safely. Furthermore, we continued business as usual with our suppliers of goods and services and content producers by creating specific protocols to ensure safety in all recordings and shoots.

Despite a tumultuous 2020, our results prove that over the year we worked on the right things - and our audience and advertisers trusted us accordingly. We ended the year with revenue of EUR 866.3 million, EBITDA of EUR 74.3 million and consolidated profit of EUR 23.9 million.

Our belief in our business model, guided by principles of quality, innovation and social sensitivity, continued to deliver strong results. Yet again, surveys showed we are perceived as the best media company across variables such as quality, variety and popular appeal in our content, and in our social sensitivity and viewpoint diversity. Our news coverage retained its high credibility among the public, and we topped the league table of Spanish media in the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report. We proved able to adapt our range of advertising solutions to new technologies and new consumption habits, as shown by our acquisition of H2H, a company that specialises in gathering and analysing data generated by platforms and social media influencers.

We are grateful for the milestone achievements of the year: every day, 22 million people chose our channels for news and entertainment, making us the Spanish communications group with the largest daily audience for our content; in addition, more than 3.5 million people tuned into our radio stations every day. Our international channels reached 54 million subscribers around the world.

Antena3’s news programmes achieved a new record and were the market leaders for the third consecutive year with the highest viewing figures in 12 years. laSexta’s news programmes also performed better than ever in the channel’s history, with more than 1.2 million viewers. Pasapalabra, Spanish TV’s most popular gameshow, premiered its new season on Antena 3 and became the absolute leader in the afternoon time slot. Mask Singer was the mostwatched premiere of a TV entertainment show in the past eight years, while our current affairs and comment programme, Al Rojo Vivo, had its best ever year, drawing an average of more than a million viewers. These successes came in the year in which Antena 3 and Onda Cero celebrated their 30th anniversary, while our theme channels Neox and Nova completed their 15th year, culminating a long-term bet driven by commitment, quality and innovation.

Despite a tumultuous 2020, our results prove that over the year we worked on the right things and our audience and advertisers trusted us accordingly

Despite the strong performance of offline broadcasting, 2020 was undoubtedly the year of Atresmedia going digital. Our firmly established online platform ATRESplayer was joined by ATRESplayer Premium, the Group’s subscription OTT for all-new, original and exclusive content, which achieved a record year for subscriber uptake, with 452,097 new subscribers. We premiered our original production Veneno, which became the smash hit of the year and one of the most-streamed series of 2020, drawing close to 450,000 viewers and winning the Iris Critics Prize and the Premio Ondas for best female actor. During the pandemic, Atresmedia’s radio stations took on an unprecedented challenge to stay on air to the same standards of quality. The stations bolstered their digital environment by launching the new Onda Cero app that provides an accessible and customisable shopfront for listeners to choose their preferred content and options.

Another highlight was our alliance with Telefónica for the launch of Buendía Estudios, a content production and distribution company that aims to become the benchmark studio for Spanish-language content production for the domestic and international market. Elsewhere, Atresmedia Diversificación now represents a growing percentage of the Group’s revenue and profit through recovery of its Media-for-Equity investments. In the midst of a global pandemic Atresmedia proved that it is worth taking risks on new and different business models that can provide fresh options in challenging and uncertain times.

At Atresmedia, we believe we are doing our job right only if we meet the expectations of our stakeholders and raise awareness of social causes that demand our full attention and action. We have a proven ability to communicate, to draw an audience and to exert an influence. For this reason, we must use our power of communication responsibly – not merely to keep people informed and entertained, but also to build a better, more educated society. The constraints of remote work proved to be no barrier to our continuing and even increasing our role in awarenessraising and social action through the initiatives of Compromiso Atresmedia, our corporate volunteering programme, and the activities of the Atresmedia Foundation.

It is my hope that we shall be able to continue to play a role in the recovery from this crisis that affects us in so many ways, and at every turn requires us to do our best.