Letter from the chairman

We ask you - our audience, shareholders, advertisers, employees and suppliers - to join us, and look back on an unprecedented year. We learned lessons. We met challenges. Most important of all, we confirmed a fact: as a communications group, we are in the lead. And we are ready to stay there. Hard times lie ahead for Spain and the Spanish public. We will continue to be there for them. Our purpose and our belief as a company are now more meaningful than ever: we believe in thought; we believe in feeling. Even in our toughest year ever, we kept our business going and made sure Atresmedia’s people and talent were seen and heard by the whole country – to keep people informed; to keep people entertained; to be there for them when we were most needed.

In 2020, the two key factors that shape our business behaved in strikingly opposite ways. On one hand, there was a spike in the use of audiovisual content in all its forms – linear television and radio, streamed content and payper- view content over the Group’s websites. Yet, on the other, there was an unprecedented crash in advertising spend. Our advertisers are spending less because the economy has taken a hit from the pandemic – and mainly in the sectors that historically advertise the most, especially on television. Meanwhile, people are watching more television than ever – in a broad sense, encompassing both the traditional and the new broadcasting shopfronts – because they are increasingly keen to keep themselves entertained and up-to-date with the news.

These two facets of reality were quite unexpected. Without a doubt, the wide difference between the scenario at the start of the year and the way things stood by the close is explained by the farreaching impact on the real economy and on society of the pandemic. However, other trends that were already present continued and even strengthened: content streaming is now a fully entrenched form of consumption; technology has become part and parcel of advertising; and consumers increasingly demand more accurate news coverage and higher quality entertainment and fiction.

Ever willing to speak up for social causes and in line with our commitment to give voice to the public mood, in 2020 Atresmedia worked hard to raise awareness of how the economic and healthcare crisis hurts the most vulnerable – people on their own, families at risk of exclusion, or the homeless – and we called on society as a whole to come to their aid. Atresmedia news and entertainment programmes put themselves to this task more than ever before. We are proud of how our public service calling and our hard work contributed to soften the blows of this crisis.

Our audience and the industry strongly support our strategy and model, predicated on quality, innovation, respect and commitment. Atresmedia was the leading news network again in 2020, earning the audience’s trust in our journalists and our way of reporting and commenting on current events. The Group continued to fight fake news with a range of mechanisms that ensure that our current affairs coverage is credible and rigorous. This was a frontline issue this year, as society needed accurate news about the pandemic. We are proud that our journalist Vicente Vallés, the anchor of Noticias 2 on Antena 3, which he also produces and directs, was awarded the 2020 Francisco Cerecedo prize by the Association of European Journalists for his accurate and independent news coverage. The Madrid Press Association presented the “Best Journalist of 2020” accolade to Carlos Alsina, who produces and presents the Más de uno radio show on Onda Cero.

Atresmedia is of course a leading news organisation, but this year – the toughest season so far – we also upped our game in entertainment, fiction and film. Our content was especially welcome amid the protracted lockdown. We achieved this with successful formats such as La Voz, Mask Singer and El Hormiguero 3.0, and original fiction content that brought to Spanish homes the most watched series of the year, such as Veneno, Mujer and Mi Hija. Supporting the arts and the film industry remained among our goals. Despite the crisis, Atresmedia Cine took part in a slew of projects and when the lockdown ended encouraged people to return to cinemas. Releases included Padre no hay más que uno 2, which became the highest-grossing film of the year in Spain.

Even in our toughest year ever, we kept our business going and made sure Atresmedia’s people and talent were seen and heard by the whole country to keep people informed; to keep people entertained; to be there for them when we were most needed

On the corporate side, in 2020 we closed a highly attractive deal with our partner Telefónica, strengthening our position as a benchmark in content production and distribution with the creation of Buendía Estudios. In advertising – our main source of revenue – we continued to innovate and develop our tech to bolster our positioning in the digital world. We help each advertiser get a higher return on their investment by creating the campaign that best fits their communication needs.

The Atresmedia Group is aware that, as a media company, it is under a duty to the wider community. We are accountable as a major employer, as a major contractor of suppliers, and as an investment of choice for our shareholders. In 2020, we continued to refine our Corporate Responsibility Master Plan by further integrating sustainability concerns with all levels of the organisation. For yet another year, Atresmedia was picked as a member of the FTSE4Good Ibex sustainability index, which lists the leading companies in corporate responsibility practices. We are proud to say that the company’s efforts in transparency in reporting to stakeholders were recognised in the ‘Transparency, credibility and good governance ranking’. We ranked highest among all communication groups assessed.

We continued to align closely with the United Nations Global Compact, the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. We are aware that we can play a key role in achieving those objectives, and so we focus on initiatives that involve our internal and external audiences and the wider community. Our Compromiso Atresmedia initiatives and the efforts of Fundación Atresmedia - which in 2020 celebrated its 15th anniversary - are the Group’s response to the global social and environmental challenges that we all face.

In the exciting journey that is our business I would like to acknowledge all those who help us to succeed, and without whom we would be unable to achieve our goals. This year, more than ever before, I thank and salute our employees. With perseverance and grit, they rose to the challenge and overcame exceptional difficulty. They kept the business going and upheld the standards of excellence that are the hallmarks of our Group. And, with dedication and empathy, they took on corporate volunteer work to help those the pandemic has hit the hardest.

Our project as a global audiovisual group only makes sense in the light of the trust placed in us by our advertisers, for whom we remain the advertising venue of choice. Our role is to provide a safe environment in which advertisers’ brands can be displayed without risk facing a general audience. We must also make sure that ours is the right venue to advocate for our advertisers’ social causes.

We thank our audience for choosing us, our content providers for their commitment to innovative creativity, and our shareholders for their continued support for our business model, which has become an industry benchmark.

And I personally thank our shareholders, audience, employees, advertisers and suppliers. I like to think that you partake not only in the Group’s successes but also in its role as the compass of a society that, now more than ever, needs its media of communication to demonstrate trustworthiness, quality, accuracy, and human warmth.