LONDON, UK — The fading picture of traditional TV may be clear to see – but Stéphane Coruble wants you to see the bigger picture.
Coruble is CEO, RTL AdAlliance, a gateway representing pan-European TV and digital video ad sellers.
RTL just published the thirtieth edition of its annual TV Key Facts, a compendium of latest international video trends. Speaking to me at Looking Ahead: TV in Europe 2025, a Beet.TV Leadership Summit, presented by Magnite & Publica, Coruble summarised the findings.
The Strength of Linear TV and VoD
“I hear a very, very negative narrative around (traditional) television,” Coruble laments. “For us at RTL AdAlliance and mostly our partners, we don’t talk about ‘TV’ anymore, we talk about ‘total video’. When I look and when we look at the total video industry, it’s pretty dynamic.”
According to Coruble, “Six hours and 12 minutes, that’s the daily viewing time of total video in the nine biggest countries in the world.” He adds that 73% of this time is driven by linear TV and video on demand. As he sees it,
“Linear TV is bringing in Europe an average of 63% reach on a daily basis with very big discrepancies from one country to the other.”
This refreshed perspective includes traditional TV, online video, VoD, and social video, painting a broader and more vibrant picture of the industry than just traditional TV alone.
Sell To Europe
Luxembourg-based pan-European RTL Group owns RTL Television whose footprint is significant, including RTL Television in Germany, M6 in France, the RTL channels in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Croatia, Hungary, and Antena 3 in Spain, not to mention the Fremantle content business.
Recognizing Europe’s diversity and fragmentation, Coruble highlights the company’s vision to serve as an international ad sales force, not only for RTL group companies but for numerous other publishers or broadcasters across Europe.
“We are gathering premium publisher mostly in video across Europe and we are bundling those different inventories in order to provide clients and brands connections with consumers in Europe,” he explains.
Merging Diverse Expertise for a Unified Vision
It had already operated AdConnect, a video marketplace platform to represent premium inventory across linear TV and VOD, built on SpotX and Smartclip, both of which RTL acquired in recent years in addition to VideoAmp and Clypd.
In 2022, the outfit announced it would merge three units, “to provide international advertisers with simplified access to a unique portfolio of media brands across TV, digital video, radio/audio, online, mobile and print”:
- RTL AdConnect
- G+J I|MS
- SmartClip’s media division
That merger just completed. “Basically people from the supply side establishing publisher networks specifically in online video and people selling tech to broadcasters,” Coruble explains, underlining the breadth of the new company’s capabilities.
You’re watching “Looking Ahead: TV in Europe 2025,” a Beet.TV Leadership Summit, presented by Magnite & Publica. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
