ATRESMEDIA
|
ANNUAL AND CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY REPORT 2014
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LETTER FROM THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
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9
I could not start my summary of the year without expressing my admira-
tion and affection for the late José Manuel Lara Bosch. He was an excep-
tional man and an extraordinary businessman, with a great capacity for
dialogue, who helped to strengthen the role of free and diverse informa-
tion in Spain and to modernise the cultural sector.
Without his leadership and love of innovation,
Atresmedia
would not be
the great communications group that it is today. José Manuel Lara had
successfully held the reins of this company over the last 11 years and we
are in his debt for much of the philosophy and many of the achievements
of this company, which has just celebrated its first 25 years of history.
Over this time,
Antena 3
, the first private television network in our coun-
try, has turned into
Atresmedia
, the leading audiovisual communications
group in Spain, which creates, manages, distributes and markets content
across all the communications platforms.
2014 has been an excellent year. The market has finally shown the first
signs of recovery after seven years of crisis that saw a fall of almost 50%
in advertising investment.
Atresmedia
has overcome this advertising and
economic recession thanks to its ability to adapt to a constantly chang-
ing socio-economic and legislative environment, to create new business
areas, to improve its management and also thanks to a huge dose of
innovation.
The crisis has made us stronger and more flexible, and now that the re-
covery is taking its first steps, we are in the best possible position to take
advantage of a future full of opportunities. According to Infoadex, 2014
saw a 10% growth in advertising investment. We will probably see a con-
tinuation of this trend in 2015, which means that, although there is still a
long way to go, the coming years should bring us new opportunities for
growth.
In 2014 we had what was called the “digital switch-over”, which forced
Atresmedia Televisión
to stop broadcasting
xplora
,
Nitro
and
laSexta3
,
three leading channels among their genre and audience. Their closure
broke the balance with our main competitor. Despite all this, we did not
have time for regrets and have continued working to minimise the conse-
quences and reinforce our commercial strategy.
Today
Atresmedia Televisión
, with four leading channels in their seg-
ments, is a well-known brand, with an innovative, high quality business
model, respectful of its viewers and advertisers and highly valued by the
audiovisual sector, of which it is very supportive.
This model has allowed our channels to increase their audiences month
after month thanks to programming that is varied in genres and offers
an extremely high proportion of hits. It is a television network that also
stands as the favourite of society and the most appealing from an adver-
tising point of view.
Antena 3
has grown 0.2 points compared to 2013 and is the new absolute
leader in the commercial target (13.8%), the audience of most interest to
the advertisers. In 2014,
Atresmedia
won various awards, including six
Ondas Awards, 17 awards from the Academy of Television, and four MIM
awards, which made us the audio-visual group with the most awards.
The merger with
laSexta
was a great business and editorial success and
has brought us diversity and richness. Since this channel was added to
the Group, its audience has not stopped growing, to the point that it has
so far seen 30 months of uninterrupted growth. With an increase of 1.2
Atresmedia
has overcome this
advertising and
economic recession
thanks to its ability
to adapt to a
constantly changing
socio-economic and
legislative environment,
to create new business
areas, to improve its
management and also
thanks to a huge dose
of innovation.