Revenues for GAAGo, RTÉ’s joint venture with the GAA increased by over 100% last year to €5.02m while profits for the business grew by 29% to €673,000.
Details of the performance of GAAGo were contained in notes accompanying the annual report of the broadcaster which was published this week. The abridged notes also show that RTE received a €600,000 dividend from the joint venture.
The annual report also showed that following a difficult year for the broadcaster, advertising revenues declined by 3.9% to €105.3m while sponsorship revenues were down by 11.3% to €9.7m.
The annual report also noted that RTÉ’s total revenue, including commercial advertising and sponsorship as well as the licence fee, declined by €3.7m to €344m while overall losses tripled to €9.1m last year.
While RTE does not give a breakdown of its advertising revenues it said that spot advertising, the single biggest contributor to commercial revenue, declined by 6.2% on 2023.
“This was largely anticipated as 2022 featured a winter FIFA World Cup which proved exceptionally popular with both audiences and advertisers. Excluding the impact of Special events, RTÉ performed in line with the overall TV Spot market which declined in the year. The year-on-year performance was driven by declines in categories such as Finance, Drinks, Entertainment and Media and Household services,” the annual report noted.
The broadcaster also noted that other TV trading revenue, including sponsorship and product placement, decreased by 13.2% “as not all programmes that were sponsored in 2022 were sponsored in 2023.”
For its part RTÉ noted that “radio trading, which includes spot, sponsorship and promotions, had a successful year in relative terms, with a year on year increase of 0.6%. Radio spot advertising increased by 0.9% and radio promotions increased by 21% off a small base, however this increase was offset by a 10% decline in Radio sponsorship.
Digital trading revenues, meanwhile, increased by 4.2% with digital VOD revenues were up by 11.3% year on year while digital display revenue across rte.ie declined by 16.2% year on year.
