DPG Media Group

DPG Media Group, the Belgian family-controlled media company that is now one of the largest news and broadcasting operators in the Benelux, reported consolidated revenue of EUR 2,004.8 million for the financial year ended 31 December 2025, up from EUR 1,653.1 million on a restated prior-year basis. The group reported operating profit before depreciation, amortisation and impairments (EBITDA in its filings) of EUR 439.9 million, an EBITDA margin of 21.4%. Profit from continuing operations reached EUR 238.0 million; including a EUR 151.0 million result from discontinued operations, net profit for the year was EUR 389.0 million.

Two structural events dominate the FY2025 accounts and make simple year-on-year comparison misleading. First, DPG sold its Danish subsidiary Berlingske Media to Norway’s Amedia; the transaction was announced in December 2024 for a reported DKK 750 million (≈ EUR 100 million) and closed in early 2025, after which Danish operations are reclassified to discontinued activities in both 2025 and the restated 2024 comparative. Second, on 1 July 2025, DPG completed the EUR 1.1 billion acquisition of RTL Nederland from RTL Group, meaning the Dutch commercial-television business, including the streaming service Videoland, is consolidated for only the second half of FY2025. The 21% revenue increase reported for 2025 is therefore a blend of organic development in Belgium and the Netherlands and six months of inorganic uplift from RTL Nederland; it is not a like-for-like growth figure.

The strategic picture these transactions draw is consistent with recent management commentary from executive chairman Christian Van Thillo: the group is concentrating on its two home markets, Belgium (Flanders primarily) and the Netherlands, and is moving from a publishing-led identity toward a fully cross-media operator that combines newspapers, magazines, radio, free-to-air television, and streaming under one roof. After the RTL Nederland deal, DPG controls market-leading commercial television in both the Flemish community (VTM) and the Netherlands (RTL 4, RTL 5, RTL 7, RTL 8, RTL Z), alongside the Netherlands’ largest local streaming service (Videoland) and a print and digital news portfolio that includes De Volkskrant, Algemeen Dagblad, Trouw, Het Parool, Het Laatste Nieuws and De Morgen.

DPG Media Group, key financial indicators (continuing operations unless stated)

Source: DPG Media Group Annual Report 2025, Jaarcijfers 2025 (consolidated income statement). Figures in KEUR in original filing; presented here in millions. The 2024 comparative has been restated by the company to reclassify the Automotive Mediaventions business to discontinued operations. Figures are labelled by DPG as prepared under IFRS from 2021 onward. The FY2025 revenue line includes six months of contribution from RTL Nederland, consolidated as of 1 July 2025 following completion of the acquisition; year-on-year growth is therefore not organic.

DPG Media Group, principal media assets

Source: DPG Media Group Annual Report 2025; DPG Media corporate communications; Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) decision on the RTL Nederland acquisition (27 June 2025); Belgian Competition Authority decision on the RTL Belgium transaction (29 March 2022); Euromedia Ownership Monitor country reports on Belgium and the Netherlands (2025 edition). The brand list is illustrative of the principal titles; DPG describes its portfolio as comprising approximately 90 brands in total.

Signals

Signal one: the Dutch commercial television market has been consolidated into a Belgian family company

The most consequential transaction in European commercial television in 2025 was the transfer of RTL Nederland from Luxembourg-based RTL Group to Antwerp-based DPG Media. The deal was announced in December 2023, cleared by the Dutch competition authority (ACM) on 27 June 2025 subject to a set of behavioural remedies proposed by DPG, and closed on 1 July 2025. The headline consideration was EUR 1.1 billion. The effect on Dutch media structure is straightforward: the Mediamonitor of the Commissariaat voor de Media, which identified five major media owners in the Dutch market before the deal (Talpa Network, NPO, Mediahuis, DPG Media and RTL), now identifies four. The largest free-to-air television operator in the Netherlands, the country’s leading local streaming service Videoland (with subscriber figures most recently reported by RTL Group at around 1.3 to 1.5 million), and an independent news broadcaster (RTL Nieuws) now sit inside the same group as De Volkskrant, Algemeen Dagblad, NU.nl and Libelle. ACM approval was conditional on a series of undertakings designed to protect editorial independence and prevent cross-subsidisation of news content between the brands; DPG published a first compliance report in early 2026 and RBB Economics was commissioned to check whether news content had been shared between RTL Nieuws and other DPG titles. According to that report, no such sharing took place in 2025. The commitments themselves, not just whether they are observed, are the feature to watch in coming years.

Signal two: the EUR 1.1 billion price has been paid out of a strengthened balance sheet and a new credit line

Funding the acquisition of RTL Nederland required DPG Media to grow its debt stack. In parallel with the transaction, DPG signed a further EUR 120 million loan with the European Investment Bank in early 2025 as part of a total capital programme of approximately EUR 392 million planned across the 2024-26 period for digital transformation and innovation; this followed a first EIB loan signed in 2022. The EIB has characterised the programme as supporting research, development and innovation and the digitalisation of media services in Belgium and the Netherlands, with about 30% of the programme financed by EIB. Financial expense in the consolidated income statement grew from EUR 14.4 million in 2024 to EUR 25.1 million in 2025, consistent with a larger interest-bearing debt base, though the full-year impact of financing the acquisition will only be visible in the FY2026 accounts, when RTL Nederland is consolidated for twelve months rather than six. The combination of the acquisition itself and the continuing capital programme means DPG is simultaneously the largest Dutch-language news publisher, the largest commercial broadcaster in two EU countries, and an accelerating technology investor.

Signal three: ownership concentrates in a small number of private Flemish families through a company that does not disclose its ultimate beneficial owners

DPG Media Group is not publicly listed. Regulatory filings and the work of the Flemish and Walloon media regulators, together with the Euromedia Ownership Monitor, have consistently described the ownership chain in the same terms: approximately 99.2% of DPG Media’s shares are held by Epifin, a Flemish holding company whose ultimate beneficial owners are not publicly traceable in corporate registers. It is common knowledge, and confirmed by the composition of the DPG board, that Epifin is controlled by three Belgian families, Van Thillo, Criel and Convent, with the Van Thillo family understood to have the dominant position. Christian Van Thillo, who ran the group as CEO for three decades, has been executive chairman since March 2020; Erik Roddenhof is CEO. The practical question raised by the RTL Nederland transaction is how this family-controlled, non-listed, non-transparent ownership structure intersects with an expanded role in Dutch public life. In the Netherlands, following the deal, Mediahuis and DPG Media together control more than 90% of national newspaper titles (per the Commissariaat voor de Media’s Mediamonitor), and DPG now also operates the market-leading commercial broadcaster and streaming service. The two groups are both Belgian-headquartered and both family-controlled through opaque holding structures. This is not unique to the Dutch market (concentrated private ownership of news media is common in Europe) but the scale and cross-border reach of a company whose ultimate beneficial owners are not a matter of public record is unusual.

Signal four: the group has withdrawn from Denmark and consolidated its geography around two home markets

In December 2024, DPG Media agreed to sell Berlingske Media, its Danish subsidiary, to Amedia, Norway’s largest local news publisher. Media reporting at the time put the transaction value at DKK 750 million (equivalent to approximately EUR 100 million). The sale completed in early 2025. The package included Berlingske (published since 1749), the tabloid B.T., the weekly Weekendavisen and the financial news site Euroinvestor. In the FY2025 consolidated income statement the Danish operations are presented within the line for discontinued operations; the EUR 151.0 million reported on that line is therefore principally the gain on disposal of Berlingske Media together with the residual result on Automotive Mediaventions, rather than trading profit. The commercial logic expressed by DPG in communications with its Danish staff, and publicly by Christian Van Thillo, was that Berlingske needed greater scale to compete and that Amedia, as a Nordic-focused digital-first publisher, would be a better long-term home. The geopolitical effect is that DPG has withdrawn from the Scandinavian market it entered in 2014 with the Mecom acquisition, and simultaneously doubled down on the Netherlands. The group now describes itself as active in Belgium and the Netherlands only, with no Danish operations.

Signal five: 2025 revenue growth is mostly acquisition-driven, but the underlying business is also more profitable

Separating the organic from the acquired component of 2025 performance is essential to reading the accounts. The published figures show total revenue and other operating income of EUR 2,053.7 million in 2025 versus EUR 1,705.4 million in 2024 (restated), a headline increase of around 20%. RTL Nederland, which contributed six months to consolidated revenue, was reported to have revenue of EUR 636 million in 2022 (per the most recent figure disclosed by RTL Group in deal communications); on a simple half-year proration this implies a contribution on the order of EUR 300-350 million to 2025 group revenue, subject to actual trading in 2025 and purchase-accounting adjustments that the full audited report will disclose. The organic growth component of the revenue line, in other words, is materially smaller than the headline. The more interesting story is in the margin. EBITDA grew from EUR 341.2 million to EUR 439.9 million and the EBITDA margin rose from 20.0% to 21.4%, a 1.4 percentage-point expansion despite integration costs typically associated with a transaction of this size. The combination of continuing operating leverage in the pre-acquisition business and a half-year of what appears to be profitable trading from RTL Nederland suggests that the core DPG business is in better operating shape than a simple revenue comparison indicates. The FY2026 accounts, with twelve months of RTL Nederland consolidated, will be the first year that allows a clean read of the enlarged group.

Signal six: a single company now shapes a substantial share of Dutch-language daily news

DPG publishes a separate journalistic annual report each year in which its 17 Belgian and Dutch newsrooms disclose paid-subscriber numbers and daily reach. The 2025 edition, published in early 2026, shows De Volkskrant at 322,934 paid subscribers (down 1,604 on 2024), Trouw at 100,134 (down 1,529), Algemeen Dagblad at 349,749 (up 5,467) and Het Parool at 62,812 (up 1,120), with daily digital reach figures for De Volkskrant at 562,752 (up 72,324) and for RTL Nieuws, now inside the group, at 3,358,393 (down 220,658). The directional story is familiar across developed markets: heritage national dailies under pressure, regional and tabloid-style titles more resilient, television news still the single largest reach channel. The structural story is distinctly Dutch-Belgian: the broadsheet, tabloid, free regional and television news channels that between them cover most of the daily information consumption of two countries now report up into one commercial group whose ultimate owners are three private families. DPG discloses the reach figures and subscriber trends in detail, which is unusual among private European media groups and provides a genuine accountability surface; the volume of that disclosure is itself one of the most practically useful features of the group’s annual communication to the public.

Outlook

DPG Media entered 2026 as a structurally different company from the one that entered 2025. Denmark is out, RTL Nederland is in, debt is up, and the revenue base has grown by roughly a fifth on a reported basis with further uplift to come when RTL Nederland is consolidated for a full year. The most informative indicators to watch in the FY2026 accounts will be: the reported revenue and EBITDA contribution of the Dutch TV and streaming operations on a full-year basis; the trajectory of the EBITDA margin in the enlarged perimeter (the 21.4% reported for 2025 will be harder to defend once a broadcasting business with structurally lower margins than digital subscription publishing is consolidated for twelve months); the evolution of financial expense as the acquisition financing is in place for the full year; and the published ACM-compliance report on the behavioural remedies attached to the RTL Nederland transaction. On the editorial side, the reach and paid-subscriber figures that the group now routinely discloses will give an unusually transparent view of how a single commercial operator shapes daily news consumption across two European countries.

The strategic direction described by DPG’s executive chairman (consolidation onto two home markets, integration of news, entertainment and audio across print, broadcast and streaming, heavy investment in digital and AI tooling with EIB support) is internally consistent with the 2025 accounts. Whether it is a durable model depends on questions the accounts cannot yet answer: whether the editorial firewalls between newsrooms in the same group will hold under competitive and political pressure; whether the acquired broadcasting business can continue to generate the cash needed to service the acquisition debt; and whether opaque family ownership remains politically acceptable in two EU countries where more than 90% of national newspaper circulation, and now a clear majority of commercial television audience, sits inside two Belgian-headquartered private groups.

Sources

Primary source, audited financial figures:

DPG Media Group, Jaarverslag 2025 / Jaarcijfers 2025, consolidated income statement and segment reporting, published April 2026 at https://jaarverslag.dpgmediagroup.com. Figures presented under IFRS (applied by DPG from 2021 onward, per the reporting footnote on the 35-year revenue chart). The 2024 comparative has been restated by DPG to reclassify Automotive Mediaventions to discontinued operations.

Transaction documentation:

Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), decision on the acquisition of RTL Nederland by DPG Media, 27 June 2025 (summary and full decision published by ACM). RTL Group / Bertelsmann press releases on the announcement, approval and closing of the RTL Nederland sale (December 2023, June-July 2025). DPG Media and Amedia press communications on the sale of Berlingske Media (December 2024 and early 2025). Belgian Competition Authority conditional approval decision on the DPG / Rossel acquisition of RTL Belgium (29 March 2022). European Investment Bank, press release 2025-076, EUR 120 million financing agreement with DPG Media (February 2025).

Ownership and market structure:

Euromedia Ownership Monitor, country reports on Belgium and the Netherlands (2025 edition). Commissariaat voor de Media (Dutch Media Authority), Mediamonitor 2024 and 2025. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Digital News Report 2025 — Netherlands and Denmark chapters. Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media (VRM) annual monitoring reports.

Journalism and audience data:

DPG Media Journalistiek Jaarverslag 2025 (published early 2026), paid-subscriber and daily-reach data for 17 Dutch and Belgian newsrooms, as reported by Marketing Report (Netherlands).

Currency conversion methodology:

EUR/DKK reference rate for the Berlingske Media disposal based on the ECB 2025 annual average rate of EUR 1 = DKK 7.4634 (Deutsche Bundesbank published series). All DPG Media headline figures are reported in EUR and require no conversion.