3. Position
Earnings Performance
The turnover of dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH increased by € 7.1 million or 7.6 % to € 101.0 million in 2021. Thus, the forecast value was clearly exceeded despite the ongoing noticeable effects of the Corona pandemic. The main influencing factors were the first full-year effect of the acquisition of the video business of TeleNewsNetwork (TNN), the merger of dpa-digital services GmbH (short: dpa-ds) with dpa and the bundling of all technical revenues from the transmission of the dpa basic German package at the parent company. This was flanked by the renewed high revenue growth of the relatively new Custom Content offer as well as increased cost reimbursements from services for dpa subsidiaries.
In addition to the foreseeable decline in revenues from the dpa basic service and the regional services as a result of a continued fall in circulation figures in the print sector, it was also not possible to maintain the previous year’s revenue level at the foreign-language services. The profile service dpa-Select as well as the dpa-Agenda event services held up well in 2021 and were both able to record revenue growth.
In the picture sector, current picture broadcasting was also affected by the decline in circulation, but revenue of € 8.6 million was just above the previous year’s level.
In the persistently difficult segment of the secondary marketing of pictures, on the other hand, it was possible to not only stabilise the turnover, but actually realise an increase in sales with the subsidiaries picture alliance and Zentralbild, despite the dramatic drop in prices in some areas as well as lower call-up figures owing to Corona.
The sales of the new product fields again developed more than satisfactorily with an increase of 5.1 million euros, mainly driven by the already mentioned acquisition of the TNN video business in July 2020, the integration of digital publishing through the merger of dpa-ds as well as the continued high growth in the range of services offered by the custom content editorial department in Hamburg.
Turnover from technology and transmission increased as planned by € 0.5 million due to the bundling of all corresponding technical revenue shares of the dpa basic German package at the parent company in 2021. At the same time, however, the technical costs also increased by almost the same amount.
Other operating income remained almost the same on balance at 1.7 million euros, whereby slightly declining EU project funding and lower proceeds from asset disposals were more than compensated for by the increased release of provisions.
At 102.6 million euros (previous year: 95.4 million euros), this resulted in an increase in total operating performance of 7.2 million euros.
The cost of materials rose by 12.5 % or € 3.7 million to € 33.5 million, mainly due to the postponement of major sporting events to the reporting year and the associated extraordinary expenses, the complete integration of the video business of TNN and the digital publishing business of dpa-ds, increased fees in the photo sector in line with the increased secondary image sales as well as revenue-driven fee expenses of the growth areas mentioned.
In 2021, personnel expenses also increased compared to the previous year and rose by a total of 3.7 million euros from 56.9 million euros to 60.6 million euros.
Slightly lower expenditures for salary payments due to a decrease in the number of employees by nine staff positions on average for the year as well as the absence of one-off expenses for restructuring measures in the previous year are mainly offset by an increased special allocation of 3.5 million euros to the dpa provident fund. Added to this were the effects of the one-off payment agreed in a collective wage agreement. Although the latter was not paid out until 2022, it was already posted to income in 2021 as part of a provision.