The weakening of the Spanish advertising market is challenging expected earnings of the biggest television chains in the country. The year began optimistically with increases in advertising investment around 3.6% in the first quarter, or nearly 520 million euros. But this trend has reversed significantly over the course of the past three months.
According to FactSet, since the end of March erratic market activity has caused Antena 3´s predicted net profits to decrease about 10.5% to 116 million euros.
In Mediaset España?s case, lower earnings predictions have been more significant (upwards of 25%), which means that the old Telecinco would earn only 194 euros this year, which is more than 60 million less than what was predicted three months ago.
This circumstance has prompted these two Spanish groups to trim their expected earnings as compared to similar firms in Europe. Nevertheless, they will still corner the Japanese television operators, which is a direct consequence of recent natural disasters and nuclear crises in Japan.
