• The growth rate in the first half of 2010 compared to the first half of 2009 was 10%.
• The Spanish Prisa group is the only group whose audiovisual activities are still in decline.
• Groups financed mainly through advertising achieved the highest growth.
• Apart from BSkyB, operators of satellite packages are experiencing a low level of growth.

Analysis of the consolidated accounts for the first half of 2010 published by the 12 largest private television groups in Europe shows a significant rise in activity levels. The turnover of these 12 groups was EUR 17.6 billion, compared to EUR 16.1 billion in the first half of 2009 and EUR 17.6 billion in the first half of 2008. This total does not take into account the turnover of Five, the British channel that was sold by the RTL Group in June 2010. Taking this sale into account, the rate of growth of the 12 largest groups compared to the first half of 2009 is exactly 10%.

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The groups financed mainly through advertising, which were worst affected by the recession of 2008 and 2009, showed a slight improvement, with the highest growth figures recorded by Polish group TVN (+18.9%), the Mediaset group, which operates in Italy and Spain (+16.7%), the French TF1 group (+13.7%) and the British ITV group (+8.6%). Various disinvestment operations were carried out during the first half of the year: in addition to the sale of Five by the RTL Group, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation group sold btv, the largest Bulgarian channel, while the Central European Media Enterprises group sold its Ukrainian channels (Studio 1+1 and Kino) in January 2010.

In 2009, pay-TV groups had coped better with the economic crisis than the groups mainly funded through advertising. However, their results in the first half of 2010 were more mixed. It is true that British group BSkyB achieved 10.2% growth in the first half of 2010. With turnover of GBP 5.9 billion for its 2009/10 tax year, which ended on 30 June, BSkyB recorded 11% growth, including a 15% rise in subscription income. However, the other groups did not register the same level of growth:

• The Spanish Prisa group was the only group still in decline (-12.8% in the first half of 2010). This is largely due to a 22.7% drop in turnover for the Digital + package and a 10.6% fall in turnover for the Portuguese group Media Capital (TVI channels), whereas the turnover of Cuatro, a channel funded by advertising, rose by 52.4%.

• Within the French Vivendi group, the Canal+ group saw its turnover increase by 3.1% during the first half of the year. This is a modest increase compared to that achieved by the group as a whole (+6.1%).

• In Germany, Sky Deutschland's turnover only rose by 1.6%. The group is struggling to increase subscriber numbers and, in a delicate financial situation, is seeking to sign agreements with cable operators.

• In Italy, the Sky Italia group (which does not publish detailed quarterly results) announced that turnover had been steady during its tax year ending 30 June 2010.