Five devalued by RTL

It has to be a sign of the times when a terrestrial TV broadcaster like Five can have its value literally cut in half overnight, but that is what happened when the owner of Five, the RTL Group, reported figures that were a lot worse than anticipated.

Five ended the year with a loss of £37.4 million, with revenues of £269 million, down 21.1 per cent on the £341 million for the previous year.

As a result of these disappointing figures, the RTL group has valued the channel at just £127.6 million, which is half what channel Five was worth before.

Having done all of that, RTL is still committed to Five and this write-down is a standard practice in business.