Stroeer SE & Co KgaA

XETRA:SAX

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q3

[Operator]

Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Q3 figures 2020 of Ströer SE. At our customers' request, this conference will be recorded. [Operator Instructions] May I now hand you over to Udo Müller, Founder and co-CEO of Ströer, who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead, sir.

[Udo Müller, Founder, Chairman of Management Board & Co]

Dear ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining our Q3 results call today. Together with my co-CEO, Christian Schmalzl; and our CFO, Christian Baier, we will present the financials for the first 9 months of 2020, our Q3 figures and share some additional insights on our key learnings from the pandemic so far, our business developed in the last 3 months from a strategic point of view and our expectations for the fourth quarter and the remaining weeks of the year. At a very early stage at the beginning of the pandemic, we had already described our estimates around the further economic development against the background of the pandemic and how we successfully prepared the company, our procedures and our employees for this scenario. Our measures to make our cost structure more variables are taking effect and are reflected in a significantly improved margin profile in all segments in Q3. Up to the beginning of November, the course of development shows an almost textbook like V-shape recovery. The low point in the second quarter and from there on a hockey stick like development, which also materialized in our figures for the third quarter. This development is, at least, slightly dampened by the so-called softer wave breaker lockdown in November here in Germany, which is appropriate and manageable by international standards. Therefore, our overall business stabilization goes on. Let me start with our results for the first 9 months of 2020 and the reassurance around our long-term strategy. Then Christian Schmalzl will give you insights on how we managed Ströer's third quarter during the crisis and what is now emerging for the fourth quarter, at least based on the current visibility. And Christian Baier will talk you through the details of our financial performance in Q3. The results of the first 9 months of 2020 are a showcase for our Out-of-Home plus strategy, solid performance in rough conditions and strong developments in normalizing times, in particular, due to our consistent market-oriented, strategic-positioning and our strict cost management. Content-based businesses like the online, our global Data as a Service platform, Statista, as well as our direct business Asam, Ranger and our contact centers continued to perform strong against an easing market environment in Q3. Despite the lockdown, weeks and the crazy shutdown of public life, which took its share from our business performance, especially at Out-of-Home and public video in the second quarter. Results for the first 9 months also reflect a strong rebound in the third quarter as expected. The reported revenues in the first 9 months of 2020 for the group stands at EUR 987 million, down by 12% compared to the prior year period. Organic revenue development was minus 11%. Please keep in mind that we have sold ProSieben products and TubeOne Networks earlier this year to sharpen our focus on our core competencies. This has an impact of around EUR 25 million on an annual basis. The adjusted EBITDA declined by 20% to EUR 311 million compared to EUR 387 million in the first 9 months 2019. Our adjusted EBIT was down disproportionately compared to EBITDA from EUR 175 million to EUR 90 million, but mainly due to the basically unchanged IFRS 16 effect. When compared to the prior-year period, adjusted net income fell by 54% from EUR 128 million to EUR 59 million. Operating cash flow in the first 9 months was a remarkable EUR 238 million. As discussed already in our half year call, we continued and even accelerated to invest into our core strategic fields, especially digitalization of our Out-of-Home inventory. Accordingly, net investment increased by 19% to around EUR 93 million compared to EUR 79 million in the prior-year period. There were also some phasing effects and we expect full year CapEx in line with our original plans. Even if visibility was quite low, we have been providing a detailed outlook per segment and key business units in our H1 call. Looking at the results of Q3, we finished at a group level, roughly 10 points better than we had expected mid of August as the market recovery was stronger than expected. The OOH media segment finished at around index 76 versus previous year, some 6% above what we had expected earlier. Germany showed slightly stronger development when compared with Poland and the non-German blowUP business. Local sales are back on pre-COVID level and national as well as regional campaigns are constantly catching up. In total, we saw an ongoing month-over-month improvement with a continuing trend in October, which stands around -- already at around index 95. We will talk about November and December later in the presentation. The digital Out-of-Home and Content segment showed as expected, quite a mixed picture, but was overall 8 points stronger-than-anticipated earlier. Public video with index 85 as with prior year improved significantly compared to the low in second quarter. As Public video showed a remarkable rebound, programmatic public video with index 100 was already on prior year level. Our portals like T-Online and our online AdSales business continued to perform strong and showed a remarkable organic growth of 7% in the third quarter. Even more pleasing was the development of Statista, which with a growth rate of around 30%, delivered slightly higher growth than pre-COVID. Against the backdrop of the corona crisis where customers have better accessibility, our contact center business was once again able to increase revenue by over 10% compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Unlike the lockdown in April and May, our door-to-door business was fully operational in the third quarter in addition to catch-up effects from the second quarter. Ranger showed a strong performance, and sales increased by around 20%. Asam continued to show sustainable above pre-COVID performance with growth of more than 25%. So overall, segment performance in Q3 was 15 points better than we had guided in August. Like-for-like, with plus 20%, the strongest quarterly growth we ever had in this segment. Looking at meanwhile 8 months pandemic development and navigating our companies through all the challenges, we have learned 6 key lessons so far. First, our focus on one country enabled us to react extremely fast and to tightly manage and control operations and costs. Especially in a situation as the current crisis, the German market has proven to be very resilient compared to many other countries because of a strong health system, reasonable politicians, lower debt and strong state aid. Secondly, our Non-Out-of-Home business is so-called PLUS businesses, generating over EUR 100 million cash in normal year they're as robust as expected. When high-touch businesses got over proportionately under pressure, our digital businesses and big part of our direct marketing businesses held up well and were an important stabilizing factor over the total group and already above pre-COVID level. Third, that Out-of-Home rebounds fast in V-shape once audiences restart after the lockdown, because of its high flexibility, digital Out-of-Home recovers even faster despite its higher exposure to public transport. The long-term growth profile of Out-of-Home is unchanged. Fourth, we see the advertising market in total to shift even faster to a digital, tech and programmatic as well as data driven solutions. Fifth, that our leading market position helps us to gain additional market share in the rebound phase and accelerate further market consolidation. And last but not least, our diversified customer portfolio from small, local to big national customers as well as across all industries and branches is a key success factor, both in the crisis and in the recovery phase. When we look back from today, 8 months ago, we can say that COVID-19 is only a bump in our road to our long-term targets. When we analyze the key growth drivers and KPIs of our business, we are in a robust situation, while the German advertising market is recovering and moving from red to yellow in October to mostly green traffic lights. Despite some economic deviations in Germany, due to the current softer lockdown in November, advertising market is robust. We also don't expect any further shock reactions as in March or April. The Out-of-Home market is highly consolidated with high barriers to entry and a huge market share puts us in improved position in the recovery scenario. The scalable local sales force is fully up to speed. And the robust long-term contracts on SMEs has helped us to get through the challenges. For programmatic phase tech and data the crisis will be an accelerator, and we are well positioned through our online and digital business in combination with digital Out-of-Home. The PLUS businesses have helped to stay in positive touch with clients and even an audience of Out-of-Home media was down, and we see that the structural challenges of TV and magazines have become less challenging in the crisis. Our proprietary portfolio is a foundation for further long-term digitalization, and we have been working on this even through the challenging last month. With that, let me hand over to Christian.

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

Thanks, Udo. An important driver of this development and crucial for our core Out-of-Home business is the fact that public life and mass mobility in Germany is recovering quite quickly already since May. The closing of schools and kindergartens mid of March as well as the nationwide restrictions of public life led to a sharp decline of outdoor traffic, looking at Apple's mobility report or also comparable data from telcos or Google. But with the reopening of shops and restaurants from May onwards, the mobility of people was increasing back over -- increasing week-over-week and public life came back again. So from the end of June, overall, mobility got closely back to pre-COVID levels, public transport is still a bit behind, but also with constantly positive trends. The overall recovery was supported by the beginning of the holiday season, and most of the people rather spending their time at home or at domestic holiday locations. This overall mobility trend was quite stable and in line with normal seasonal variations until 4 weeks ago. Mid of October, the Chancellor and the Federal state Prime Ministers met and announced some smaller additional restrictions of public life with the beginning of the autumn holidays. Then October 28, this group met again and under the leadership of Angela Merkel and in the light of increasing infections, they announced a so-called wave-breaker lockdown for the month of November. All schools, kindergartens and shops are still open, different to the first lock down, but there are tougher rules where to wear masks. Restaurants, clubs and most of the entertainment locations are shut for at least 4 weeks, and only 2 households can or should meet. What we see since this announcement is a slightly declining mobility. At the end of October and the beginning of November showed overall still the same mobility level as, for instance, in January and February before the crisis. So we clearly have some impact on the Out-of-Home audience, but it's far away from what we have seen in April as the Apple data show. How does this development over the last 8 months compared to other countries? As the German government responded quickly and reasonably to the COVID-19 challenges as our health system proved to be really robust in the peak weeks of the epidemic development and as the government support for the economy, including the instrument of short time work was really strong and fast, the drop of mass mobility was less sharp than in other countries with a harder lockdown. Furthermore, the recovery started earlier and had overall more momentum in comparison to, for instance, the U.S. or U.K. The Out-of-Home product and the underlying audience coverage has mostly recovered by the end of Q2 and we, therefore, don't see any bigger issues with the performance of Out-of-Home for advertisers long term. The second infection wave in Germany seems to be less dramatic than in other countries. The government reactions seem to be reasonable and still early enough and therefore, the lock down as well as the mobility decline seems to be again softer than anywhere else around the globe. So the next key question around the Q3 development is how the advertising market and especially the bookings for Out-of-Home responded to the crisis in general, but especially to the loss of audience as well as the beginning recovery. On the slide, you see the revenue development for Q2 and Q3 week-over-week for both our traditional Out-of-Home products in Germany and public video. The light blue line is 2019, and the dark blue line is the cumulative revenues coming in for 2020. The columns at the bottom show the deviation of the weekly order intakes 2020 versus 2019. Higher order entry than previous year in a weak is green. Lower order entry than previous year is red. Let's look at Q2 again to better understand the changes and dynamics in Q3. Until week 10 or mid of March, we have been in line with Q1, nicely ahead of previous year in the order book for the second quarter and fully on track of a strong organic growth development. Then schools and day care centers closed and restrictions of public life started. And first, incremental revenue stopped before the existing order book even went backwards for about 4 to 6 weeks because we had almost no incremental bookings, but many cancellations or shifts of campaigns in the peak phase of the soft lockdown in Germany. With the reopening of shops in week 19 and 20, the inflow for Q2 went back closer to previous year's level, but there was no chance to catch up the losses of the previous weeks for that quarter. And that's an important point in our traditional business. As you see on the left diagram, both booking and cancellation times lead to a delay of at least 4 to 6 weeks in the response to the overall environment. And the strong share of long-term contracts with SMEs give us as a robust starting point at the beginning of a quarter. Public video or digital Out-of-Home, has shorter lead times, the product responds more directly to both lockdown and recovery, as you see on the right graphic. The negative deviations in the order book for Q2 were higher and as one key backbone of the product or train stations, the low public transportation traffic in April and May, made it difficult to start the recovery before June. But already from week 24 onwards, with more normalized public transport, order book was in some weeks already slightly stronger than in the same weeks of the previous year. A different picture for the third quarter. On the one hand, you see that the weekly deviations versus previous year have never been as extreme as for the second quarter for both classic and digital Out-of-Home. The overall gap that we needed to fill once the quarter started was already by far smaller. On the other hand, there was lower revenue inflow than previous year until week 24 and 25. That was the time when traffic had overall normalized again end of June. Since then and throughout the rest of the quarter, the weekly order book development for Q3 was on the level of last year's comparable period or in the case of public video already ahead of last year's order intake. What are the current implications for Q4? This recovery trend also continued for Q4 so far. The initial gap in the order book at the beginning of the quarter is again smaller than for Q3 and the order intake was at or slightly above last year's level week-over-week. So October was again stronger than September and has already recovered to index 95 versus previous year for traditional Out-of-Home and public video combined. The second wave of infections and the second lockdown for November doesn't really give us more tailwind, but it also hasn't caused any cancellations or a massive stop in our order book. So it's also no massive headwind for the moment. It will be difficult to outperform October and November and December, but we also have no signs that, for instance, December will be substantially weaker than last year. That strong revenue recovery gave us confidence to continue and accelerate our digitization plans for Out-of-Home. And as you have seen on the slide before, also public video has a high share of transport media with still not fully recovered audiences, revenues came back faster than for traditional Out-of-Home in Q3. That's why we've used especially the last 3 months to work hard on further digital locations. Year-to-date, we've added 384 premium screens indoor and outdoor. We have also added more than 100 roadside screens in Q3 and have overall 507 screens in that category versus 400 end of Q2. The constantly decreasing prices for digital Out-of-Home displays, good conditions in the crisis and the increasing demand for digital media through COVID-19 justify the extra CapEx on top of our original plans. It's also interesting to see that the pandemic was a catalyst for the programmatic demand for digital Out-of-Home. In the first 3 quarters of this year, the programmatic revenue share for public video went up from 25% to 34%. And based on the current trends for Q4, we expect the full year to be even around 38%. As most of those budgets come from purely digital or online pots it's really incremental money and not cannibalizing traditional Out-of-Home spend. We are now benefiting from all our initiatives and tech investments in the past years in that area. And since Q3, all major and top 12 DSPs are now fully connected. Only Google is still missing, but we also have a new situation. The programmatic demand has gone up so much that all clients find their way via the broad range of non-Google DSPs. Even 12 months ago, we were still convinced that Google DoubleClick Bid Manager could bring in some extra momentum but COVID-19 has somehow done their job and somehow done that job. And the connection into the Google world might bring a little bit of extra traction, but there are also benefits in educating the market towards non-Google access points. We will see what the further discussions with Google might bring. For programmatic public video, we have more than 130 booking customers and 6.3 billion impressions delivered in the first 9 months of the year. And our combined setup with online media is clearly supporting this. Because also for online, programmatic is growing over proportionally. With over 4,500 individually negotiated active deals, we have, meanwhile, the largest private marketplace in Germany and across public video and online, more than 50% of the combined audience price come via automated trading. Our content media, especially T-Online, have been performing really strong in the months of the pandemic. The traffic increase of T-Online is outstanding, but also our verticals and the platforms like GIGA, Desired or familia.de have been growing far beyond 20% on average. We also used the growing demand for online media to introduce new targeting products and prepare us and our customers step-by-step for a digital marketing world without third-party cookies. Two years ago, we already kicked off the data management platform with the Auto Group, to ensure over 40 million first-party log-ins from their 60 online shops for first-party targeting products. The latest innovation from our joint venture is contextual targeting. We are crawling the content of over 2,000 assets in our portfolio and classify the content pieces via neuro linguistic programming into 600 different standard content categories. This contextual lever places the apps according to the defined contextual focus areas of the advertisers instead of targeting the individual website users. New features like sentiment targeting or brand suitability are coming soon to make sure that we are prepared for further restrictions on cookie-based targeting. We already talked about the strong performance of Dialog marketing through all the months of COVID-19 so far. We've been extending our lead generation services for clients and use the overproportional demand to switch the remuneration model more towards cost per acquisition models, a strong differentiator versus more traditional long tail competitors. As a result, we broaden our customer base into, for instance, pharma, e-commerce and automotive clients. We extend our customers with completely new and especially less price-sensitive accounts. And we focus even more on results-oriented commercial models instead of getting paid per minutes, hours or days. The existing client relationships as well as the client insights from our group key account structure clearly helped to take that business segment on a different level than where traditional contact centers operate. The original overlap between direct media and Out-of-Home and online media had a strong focus on telco and energy clients. Quarter-by-quarter, we extend the number of clients and industry which we service across our full range of products. Given the strong development of our Dialog marketing business, we decided to call the remaining shares of the minority shareholder beginning of Q4. Let me now hand over to Christian for his comments on the financials.

[Christian Baier, CFO & Member of Management Board]

As Udo explained briefly in his opening remarks, the figures of the third quarter reflect the expected rebound as infection rates were quite moderate from July to October, and overall business sentiment eased in that time frame. Overall group revenue declined in Q3 2020 by 6% from EUR 380 million to EUR 355 million. As discussed in our previous call in August, we looked at all cost positions and derived stringent cost-reduction measures. But as explained, it will take some time to take full effect. Now we are 3 months ahead, and the effect is clearly visible in all 3 segments. As a result, adjusted EBITDA declined by only minus 5% from EUR 131 million to EUR 125 million. Exceptional items of EUR 5.2 million and contain EUR 3 million from restructuring expenses there of EUR 2 million for reshaping sales structures in Regiohelden and EUR 1 million for our call centers. The remaining EUR 2 million relate to diverse nonmaterial topics. With EUR 88 million, depreciation and amortization is 3% lower than in Q3 2019 due to minor IFRS 16 shifts between quarters. The financial result of minus EUR 7 million is EUR 1 million lower compared to the previous year's quarter due to the change and the long-term yield curve applied on IFRS 16 financial liabilities. The tax result of the quarter was approximately minus EUR 3 million, only slightly higher compared to the previous year's quarter due to a higher tax base in Q3 2020. Adjusted net income of the quarter was EUR 37 million. Our free cash flow adjusted for Q3 2020 is EUR 14 million compared to EUR 43 million in the same period of the prior year. A negative working capital effect which we already anticipated in our half year presentation needs to be taken into account. Due to the increasing business volume in Q3, receivables increased accordingly just the reversal of the positive working capital effect in Q2. Consequently, to have a fair picture, you must consider both quarters combined, resulting in a positive working capital contribution of EUR 2 million. Tax cash out was EUR 4 million in Q3 2020 compared to EUR 8 million in the previous year's quarter as there were no tax prepayments for the current year. However, due to the overall quite strong developments, we expect to have to pay taxes in 2020. Considering our solid liquidity position, we will anticipate this and consider making advanced payments in Q4. Working capital in Q3 2020 was minus EUR 29 million compared to minus EUR 4 million in the previous year's quarter. This is due to the before-mentioned receivables effect. Despite the challenges in rough conditions, we continue to invest into our growth and digitization strategy, for instance in digital screens, software and other intangibles, in line with budget with a total of EUR 30 million and basically on previous year's levels. Lease liability repayments were up by approximately EUR 10 million from EUR 32 million to EUR 41 million due to phasing effects. From a year-to-date perspective, lease liability repayments are almost on the same level as in the same period of the prior year. Our bank leverage ratio increased slightly from 1.71 to 1.85 in the third quarter 2020 caused by a lower corona-affected last 12 months EBITDA. All in all, our leverage ratio is still well below our covenant levels. In absolute terms, financial net debt fell significantly by more than EUR 85 million from EUR 648 million to EUR 563 million, mainly because we hadn't paid the dividend by the end of Q3. As mentioned before, the financials of the third quarter must be seen in light of the corona pandemic. However, they recovered significantly from the weak development of the previous quarter because of both friendly economic environment and the full impact of our cost management measures. Consequently, all 3 segments Out-of-Home media, Digital Out-of-Home and Content as well as direct media performed well better than initially anticipated. Out-of-Home media shows organic growth of minus 24%. Digital Out-of-Home and Content of 3% and Direct Media of 20%. In absolute terms, Out-of-Home media revenue fell from EUR 171 million to EUR 131 million. This development can be explained mainly by weaker national advertising due to corona, whereas regional and local sales remained relatively robust. As discussed in our previous quarterly call in August, our measures to variabilize and reduce our costs, such as rental and leasing expenses, personnel and maintenance costs requires certain amount of time to take full effect. How effective these measures are, can now be seen in the margin development of Q3 2020. With 43%, we are only 1.7% below the pre-corona level of Q3 2019. Despite this pleasing development in margin, adjusted EBITDA decreased from EUR 77 million to EUR 57 million in absolute terms in Q3 2020. As Udo explained earlier, we continue to invest into the buildup of our digital streams in order to be prepared for a quick reboot of the business in the upcoming months. Just like in the previous quarter, public video suffered from corona, however, to a much lesser extent as in Q2 2020 as public transportation has not yet fully recovered. In contrast, the PLUS businesses of the segment, i.e. T-Online and Statista continued to perform very well. Statista fully returned to the road to success, with a sales performance of approximately 30%. Consequently, revenue reported was on par with Q3 2019 with EUR 133 million for the segment. In Q3 2020, adjusted EBITDA of digital Out-of-Home and Content was EUR 53 million, some EUR 10 million higher as compared to Q3 2019. The margin for the quarter was a remarkable 39.5%. In addition to the developments described above, the decisive factor and the strong performance was the consistent implementation of our cost reduction efforts. With an organic revenue growth of almost 20%, revenues of EUR 97 million compared to EUR 84 million in the same quarter last year. This further proves the strength of our Out-of-Home PLUS strategy. In total, our call centers continued to show good performance both to a higher accessibility of consumers as well as the tendency to use call center-based services. The same is true for Asam, where sales were up double digit in Q3. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was EUR 20 million, up by almost EUR 5 million versus prior year's quarter and corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 21%. So what do we anticipate for Q4 2020 and for full year 2020? As some 3 months ago, at the moment, it's still not possible to oversee and predict all potential developments around COVID-19 for the remaining weeks of the year. But let me comment on what we see for the time being. Based on our order book visibility end of October, we anticipate further recovery of our business and revenues in the range of index 92 to 97 versus previous year for the fourth quarter 2020 for the group. And the group adjusted EBITDA for the full year in the range of EUR 440 million to EUR 455 million.Before closing our presentation, we want to share our ideas for a new segment structure with you. The new structure should reflect the dynamics and the development of our business in the past 2 years. This is what we currently have in mind: to bring traditional Out-of-Home and public video back into one segment and give you transparency on the split between analog and digital performance. That makes it easier for all of you to compare our core business with other pure-play Out-of-Home companies. We furthermore think about merging the PLUS businesses with a focus on advertising, marketing and paid services and give you transparency around online versus Dialog/Direct Media. Finally, we think that the nonadvertising businesses might form the third segment, looking at Data as a Service as well as commerce. We believe that the new segment structure creates more transparency and clarity for all of you. But we are still working on this, and we will come back to you early next year with final outcome of this analysis. Let me now close our presentation with a reference to our next 2 release dates. First, the publication of our preliminary figures 2020 on March 3, including a guidance update; and second, the release of our annual report for 2020 on March 30. Thank you, everyone. We are now happy to take your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And the first question is from Annick Maas Exane BNP Paribas

[Annick Tonie Maas, Analyst]

My first question is on the outlook that you've given. You suggested it's based on the order book end of October. Can you tell us whether the trends that you've seen at the end of October still holds, given we are now mid-November, and I assume you have a view over next week as well? And if you could maybe comment on how that outlook looks on a division basis? My second question is on -- if you could give us an indication, in traditional Out-of-Home, you have these multiyear contracts with some of your advertisers. Could you tell us how much you benefited or you allocated revenue into this year from these multiyear contracts that you have with advertisers? And my third one is on the AsamBeauty monetization. We've seen the [indiscernible] Group IPO. We've seen ProSieben potentially positioning Flaconi to do something with Flaconi. So can you maybe tell us how you think in terms of timeline about the AsamBeauty monetization?

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

Annick, thanks for your questions. Let's start with the outlook. Yes, you're right. We're meanwhile, almost 2 weeks further down the road. And for the moment, we see that the trend that we've seen until end of October is still stable. So maybe a little bit less incremental money coming in for November, but the December inflow is as before. So I would say nothing that could be explained through impact through that second lockdown. So it's all within a normal corridor that you would expect at the end of the year. Sometimes it's a bit better, sometimes it's a bit weaker, probably not that extra catch up versus October, but for the last 2 months, but also nothing that would suggest that it's going massively backwards. So 2 weeks more that since end of October, that has given us confidence. I think on a division basis, I would, in general, say that the momentum from Q3 continues, that's all the non-Out-of-Home businesses are operating on the growth rates where they've been before the crisis. So I think Q3 was really an extraordinary quarter for all the digital and direct marketing businesses. But from what we see in the first 6 weeks of the quarter, the general momentum of Q3 continues in those areas. And as I said, for Out-of-Home, it's -- we are recovering clearly versus Q3. And we will see what the last -- well, I would say, 3 or 4 order intake weeks will bring. So we've just seen general throughout Q3 that the business continuously normalizes where it has been before. On the multiyear impact of contracts. So in general, that really granular multiyear local business is roughly 20% of our Out-of-Home business. And I would say the rollover of last year to this year. So from '19 to '20, was like 80%, 90% of that. So when the year starts, you already have almost the money in your order book that you had the year before because that's 1 year falling out maybe, but there is also revenues from the year before coming in. So I would say by the end of Q1, that when the crisis started, we already had 20% of last year's total revenues in our books because of those multiyear deals. And what we could see, yes, there was, especially in April, I would say, until mid of May, we couldn't really add that much extra revenues on the local area, but even from May onwards, the business came back and was on the normal order intake for the following 3, 4, 5 years from end of June onwards. So that we also see that it's the kind of very stable basic layer of multiyear deals for 2021 is pretty much where it was a year ago. So also looks promising for the next year.

[Udo Müller, Founder, Chairman of Management Board & Co]

Yes. Annick, regarding the last question for AsamBeauty, timeline is unchanged here. We wait until Asam is reaching EUR 200 million turnover, most likely. Business is performing very, very good, and the good development was actually accelerated now in the crisis. And you cannot compare it with the ProSieben that I am seeing because this is a trading business as a dealer, while Asam is a -- it's a producer. There's a brand business. So we have already quite strong demand from a couple of strategics on the big strategics because Asam is by far, the fastest-growing digital business in this area. So that's why we are quite optimistic also when we think about monetization. But from today's perspective, I would say, it's 2023, 2024 in this time. If not something completely irrational that's happening before because in this market now, [indiscernible] are really significant for the time being. But business is performing really amazing, and it would be -- I think it makes no sense. We don't need the money. And I think it doesn't make any sense to monetize it right now.

[Annick Tonie Maas, Analyst]

I just have one quick follow-up. So basically, your outlook is based on the fact that in December, the restrictions are going to be lifted. And on the follow-up on that, is that if you -- so for the ad campaigns that are booked early December, assuming they are canceled now, are they having some cancellation fees? Or can they so cancel without any fees?

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

Yes. Technically, we are already getting now into the weeks where you cannot cancel the money. But in case there would be anything extraordinary, you would, of course, look also at the development of next year. But in general, the outlook that we've given is based on the current development. So to be honest, it's difficult to say if the -- that wave-breaker lockdown will be prolonged. And even in case it would be prolonged, the question is, does it really impact our business because what we see at the moment is that I think the confidence of the economy in general for the rest of the year is quite strong. I think you also see it in the communication or announcements of other media. That's why we think -- and I think that's the reason why we've given that corridor, there are some uncertainties, but it's difficult to say where they might come from. But in general, at the moment, I think even if the lockdown might be prolonged, that doesn't automatically mean that there is suddenly a disaster coming in December or clients suddenly pulling money out of that. Otherwise, they wouldn't have booked it already quite early. And we also see on the basis of the discussions and negotiations around cancellation periods, and where and how they can shift the money if they are really ultra-cautious or they just say, whatever happens, we want to push our brands for the rest of the year because there's always some kind of mid- to long-term aspect attached to advertising. And that's one of the key learnings from the last weeks. I think advertisers start looking at the mid- to long-term perspective of their brands and business again. And if you want to make a good business in the first half of next year, you also need to advertise early enough. So I think for the moment, we look at what we can influence, but that looks all quite robust for the moment.

[Udo Müller, Founder, Chairman of Management Board & Co]

is the outlook.

[Operator]

And the next question is from Katherine Tait, Goldman Sachs.

[Katherine Tait, Associate]

Two questions from me, please. Firstly, clearly, you've been very successful at managing the cost base over this crisis and shifting it to a higher variable component. And how should we think about this going into a recovery period? And does that higher variable component, which I assume is a sort of revenue share agreement with the landlords? Like what does that mean for operating leverage going forward? Is it likely to be lower than before? And so how should I think about margin that you can achieve in Out-of-Home, both through the traditional and digital as you sort of continue to hopefully see this recovery come through over 2021 and beyond? And then my second question is just on AsamBeauty. And how should we think about the sustainability of that growth? Obviously, it's had a big boost from this sort of COVID period, but how are you thinking about the growth going into next year? .

[Udo Müller, Founder, Chairman of Management Board & Co]

Regarding AsamBeauty, we are confident that we are going to see also double-digit growth for next year. So since we are [ shareholder ] in the business, it actually was always growing double digits. So it was a little bit accelerated now, but we don't expect that this is going to change significantly into the next year.

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

And on the operating leverage, I mean, yes, we've been working on more or less all cost elements. And once the business is back and I talk especially about the Out-of-Home business. When it's back where it was, well, end of March. Our goal is, of course, to see some kind of margin improvement like-for-like. It's difficult to say already now what that means in detail because it's also and always a little bit influenced by the product mix. But in general, there are some elements of the cost negotiations of efficiency programs that we've run that are not attached only to the total volume. But I think that are also sticky throughout the recovery crisis. But it's a little bit too early to decide that because we're still in some areas working on that. I think what you've seen is that all the cost initiatives from Q2 had really a nice result than in Q3 because it always takes a little while. And I think once we are 100% sure that all the businesses get immediately back to where they've been, I think we've been -- we will work on that kind of 12 to 18 months outlook to see that we fix as many cost saving elements to improve our margin a little bit and take some mid- to long-term benefits from the crisis.

[Operator]

And the next question is from Craig Abbott, Kepler Cheuvreux.

[Craig Abbott, Head of Mid and Small Cap Research, Germany]

You just addressed most of my questions. Maybe just a couple of remaining. One is it's a small acquisition, but nevertheless, I'd like to understand your strategic thinking behind the Italian acquisition, where you're entering the direct marketing space there? And how this fits with your M&A strategy? And what we can maybe expect then going forward, i.e., is this the start of an additional platform of expanding that business, although you've stressed, you want to focus primarily on Germany? And the second was, I just wondered, in the case of JCDecaux, that's seen some cities come back and who have seen their tax revenues on a lot of pressure and actually pushed back the other way and demand new contract terms to the detriment. And it doesn't sound like it from the comments you just made, but I just wondered if you've had any of those cases here where cities with their Gewerkschaften coming under pressure. Whether you've seen any pushbacks there? And the final question is technicality, good reduction in exceptional items, but I just wonder if you could guide us there? What those were? And how you're -- what you're expecting there for the rest of this year and also then looking into '21?

[Udo Müller, Founder, Chairman of Management Board & Co]

Thank you. Craig, regarding the Ranger, it was -- we have a business in France, Ranger, and this is -- was a very successful acquisition, developed very nicely. And the rationale behind that was that from the beginning, that our concept is that we help our customers to sell the products. And in times of digitalization, people are clearly going less and less into shops. So customers are really -- they need to communicate actively through whatever, billboard, through calls, through WhatsApp to even visit the customer. So we believe that there's actually growth in sales to visit customers personally, even door to door, and we see a very, very strong growth in the last quarter. And because we collected -- we have really good experience with acquisition in France. We did the smaller add on deal in Italy. Generally, totally unchanged, and no M&A, no substantial M&A and focus on Germany with the auto business. I mean Statista is not -- it's a global business, for example. But it's a small and acquisition, and we believe we are convinced that we -- the know-how, which we develop in Ranger, Germany will boost the development in Italy as well because the Ranger Germany is a fully digitalized business with really amazing processes, we're super-efficient, profitable. That's the reason we did the small add-on.

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

On the Out-of-Home contracts, yes. I mean, we -- there was that choke moment in April. And -- but nevertheless, we've contacted our partners very, very early. We've seen them that anyway, we need to look at it long term, and we try to avoid any too harsh and too, I don't know, legally-driven arguments with our partners and just said, we are not up for a quick fix, and we are not up for any kind of legal dispute. We just will take the time to discuss the challenges. And I think that general approach worked very well. And just looking -- if I look at the municipality side, and our top 20 cities, I would say, at the moment, there is 19 out of 20, where we either have already an agreement or it needs to be formalized, but there is a mutual agreement what to do. And I think only one city left where we are still generally talking about the topic, but that's the absolute -- that's the one case that you always have. And I think other than that, I would say the discussions in the last couple of weeks and months have rather deepened the relationship with the parties because I think that whole Out-of-Home business came back on the radar. They understood how we operate. I think they've more than ever seen the benefits that we deliver, and they've appreciated the reasonable approach that we've taken. We talked very often about money, but we talked also almost as often about getting more support on digitization approvals for new locations. So our feeling is that more partnership-oriented approach was the right thing. But maybe it was also easier for our partners, especially the municipalities in Germany because they got really strong financial backing from the general government. I think that happened throughout the summer months. But at the moment, I would say we're in very good shape in that area.

[Christian Baier, CFO & Member of Management Board]

Craig, on the reduction of exceptional items. So they came down by EUR 5 million in Q3, so basically halved versus Q3 2019. What's in there is mostly restructuring costs from a couple of different areas, but most notably from Regiohelden, our digital marketing services, online services for small and medium-sized companies. I think 2 key areas here is that we want to integrate them closer with the rest of the organization, specifically also our local and regional sales force. And then secondly, also that we're looking into how we integrate them closer on a technology perspective, bringing the technology teams together. The second area that's worthwhile mentioning is our call centers. This was roughly EUR 1 million out of these EUR 5.2 million. This is still a bit related to our partial sale of the service-oriented call centers end of last year, which we carved out from the organization. Now we are restructuring the remaining part of the business to really fully work on a stand-alone business and be fully effective there and realize cost synergies.

[Craig Abbott, Head of Mid and Small Cap Research, Germany]

And outlook sort of going forward also into next year?

[Christian Baier, CFO & Member of Management Board]

Yes. Well, first of all, for 9 months, where we stand is we have EUR 6 million below the 9 months of 2019. I think this is what we at least want to keep also for the rest of the year. So what I'm saying is the exceptionals will come down this year. And then going forward, it's always our effort and aim to further reduce that also in 2021.

[Operator]

The next question is from Julien Roch, Barclays.

[Julien Roch, MD & European Media Analyst]

Yes. Congratulations on strong results. My first question is on Q4 guidance. Minus 8% to minus 3% is very wide, while you still have visibility until the end of November. So can you help us understand what needs to happen to get to minus 3%? And what needs to happen to get to minus 8%? Or should we go directly to plus 5%? Because you told us minus 15% to minus 20% for Q3. And you did significantly better. You did plus -- minus 5% for Q3, which is 10 points better than your guidance? To ask the first question. The second question is on digitalization, Slide -- Page 11, 534 public video, all digital, I think. So what is the size of the optimal footprint? Is 5,100 fine? Or should you go to 5,500 or 6,000? Roadside screen 507. Do you have a non-digital screen? What is the optimal size? And finally, 74,000 screens point-of-sale digital signage, what is the percentage of digital? That's my second question. And on noncore, high-growth, i.e. Asam and Statista, Asam about EUR 85 million revenue last year. Could we get a full year '20 estimate? And Statista about EUR 65 million of revenue last year, can we get a full year '20 estimate?

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

Julien, maybe I'll start with your first question on the guidance. I mean, I think it's any way difficult enough to make a guidance. So we try to be as precise as possible. But of course, we understand that you're challenging that. So if I look at the lower and the upper end of the corridor and look at the 2 businesses, very schematic, non-Out-of-Home and Out-of-Home. And I think the lower end of the corridor means that we have a really good quarter. We have a good quarter for the non-Out-of-Home businesses, and they grow in combination, maybe 7%. And the Out-of-Home business for the rest of the year performs -- as far as the order intakes of the remaining weeks are concerned, performs slightly below last year. So that whatever is open. It's maybe 10% weaker than last year. On the upper hand, we talk about not a good, but a really good quarter with at least double-digit growth of the non-Out-of-Home business and the rest of the year would mean we would outperform last year's order intake for the rest of the year. And that's a little bit the range between minus 8% or minus 3%, that's 5 points. And I think Q4, for instance, in the online business represents 40% of the annual revenues. So at the moment, there's still, I would say, maybe not half of the 40%, but at least 1/3 of that open. And I think there's a couple of year-end campaigns in the direct business where the ultimate performance in Q4 decides about your annual bonuses. So there's a couple of variances also where -- well, it can be stronger or weaker results. But it's not like we are hiding something or as lost time, say that we already look at the upper end of the corridor. I think at the moment, this corridor is really balanced between opportunities and risks for the moment. And yes, 5%, 6%, mid of the quarter are probably a wide range in normal times, but I think the fact that it's not 2% or 3%, but 5% to 6% is really about the COVID development at the moment. We've seen -- we've been surprised so many times in both directions that we think that corridor is for the given circumstances already as narrow as we could do it to give you a reasonable outlook.

[Christian Baier, CFO & Member of Management Board]

Digitalization?

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

Could you just remind me again of your second question, Julien?

[Julien Roch, MD & European Media Analyst]

Yes. Sorry. So on public video, you have 5,100 screens, which are all digital. What's the optimal size of the footprint? Then on Roadside, you have 500 screens. Do you also have non-digital screens? What is the optimal size of the footprint? And then on the last segment, which is all the point-of-sale and digital signal -- signage. What's the percentage of digital out of your 74,000?

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

So on the public video, I think, when -- I think we always have the optimum number of screens for the given situation. So I think with the growing demand of public video, we will probably add a couple of more screens in the top locations but maybe also bigger ones, and we might add a couple of more, for instance, [ train stations ] in smaller cities. But my feeling is that anything beyond 6,000 screens is probably, at least for the moment, in the next 2 or 3 years, not realistic. I think we would rather then look at more bigger screens than just adding more screens or adding even more locations. I think on the roadside, I think Udo mentioned it before, still just the beginning. And we think that, in general, when we look at the quality of locations, I think there are at least 5,000 locations that we could digitize roadside. And when I see the growing demand at the moment and look maybe at the next 3 to 4 years, 2,500, 3,000 screens, something like a reasonable next level which is looking at the dynamics of the market clearly justified. But even doubling that, I think would be possible on the basis of now and anything beyond that is probably too far away from the reality. And I think that third category is a bit tricky because most of that inventory is it's not our hardware. It's really screens that have a difference in main function like in shops, but it's also about point-of-sale communication. And I think for us, there's 3 elements in there that are crucial that we can combine all the smaller screens with others that we have for local products. Because that's something that only we can do. I think secondly, through all that tech and programmatic sales, it opens up incremental net reach when we integrate it into our tech setup. And thirdly, when we control that, and I think being sure that we have at least 50%, 60% of that inventory, I think at the moment, we are almost at 70% inventory in that area, just make sure that it's very difficult for any potential newcomer to enter the market through that backdoor. Yes. Yes, it's long tail. It doesn't deliver the value to advertisers. It doesn't generate the revenues. And as it's not very often our own inventory, it doesn't deliver the margins, but you better control it and integrate it in your product before someone else starts to do something with it in the general growth of digital Out-of-Home.

[Udo Müller, Founder, Chairman of Management Board & Co]

Don't forget that filling ratio in public video is far below 50%. So -- and the concept is a bit different than the on the roadside screens where we [ sell ] separate locations in public video with [indiscernible] reach, like, let's say, classical TV sales strategy. So that's why we had to build up the whole network, which is more or less finished. And now the focus for the upcoming years is clearly scale up filling ratio. Our target is clearly to push the filling ratio far beyond 50%, far beyond 70%, and we are far below 50%. So focus is not on investing here, focus is clearly on selling. And this was one of the point, as we said before, that COVID is a bump in our strategic road, but not more. Because especially in the last 2 weeks, we saw a very strong order intake, programmatic order intake on public video, even that the circulation is still depressed here as the focus here clearly on filling ratio. On the roadside screens, like Christian said, nobody can say because it's not only depending on the quality of the locations, but also the cost of the hardware. It's -- nobody knows now. In the past, cost of the hardware was constantly decreasing, but there is obviously also somewhere a technically driven endpoint. It will not go down to 0. So -- but this is unclear today. But up to now, it became cheaper, cheaper and cheaper. And then more and more locations become attractive. So only what Christian said in the beginning of the beginning here. And on the long run, clearly, the business will be, I don't know, 70%, 80% digital. So this is the future. So that's why we are generally very optimistic and why we always say that we see 10 years ahead of structural growth because the digitalization will change our business dramatically in every aspect. And we make it a part of the digital media growth, of the digital marketing growth. And this is where the journey just begins because public video is amazing product, but it will stay relatively a niche product in terms of size, potential size, outdoor business is outdoor. You know that probably video is indoor. And so we are at the beginning of the beginning of the digitalization of the German Out-of-Home industry. What is good news for us just to remind you here that we have a market share of [indiscernible] paper scrollers from almost 90%. And this is what we believe a key strategic asset looking into the future because, let's say, we secured -- you can say, we secured 90% of digital, big size formats, roadside locations in Germany. So that's why we had the luxury that we were waiting much longer than any other for our colleagues abroad because they were constantly fighting also for locations. We have secured the locations, and we now convert them step by step. So -- and maybe to also underline what Christian said is the long tail stuff. There's a little hope in, let's say, programmatic will actually lead to a situation where the location is not so important anymore than in the past. Because in the past, was clearly, location, location, location was driving sales. Programmatic, it changes a little bit, but actually, our activities, as Christian said, was more from a defensive character because you might remember that a couple of years ago, ProSieben announced that they want to go into a digital Out-of-Home. So they acquired some rather useless locations on the long tail side. And we were then a bit concerned that maybe somebody would try to enter the business on long tail and realizing this is not working, maybe going into other assets. So that's why we decided, okay, that you also go on this, but this is rather a defensive strategic move, then that we believe that we're going to make a lot of money here. And so focus is clearly on the 2 other assets, the roadside screens and public video. And especially from public video also in the upcoming quarters, we expect a very strong rebound driven by programmatic demand.

[Christian Baier, CFO & Member of Management Board]

Julien, on your third question regarding Asam and Statista. So possibly starting with Asam, 2019, I think we ended up with EUR 85 million turnover. As we outlined, the business is performing very well in Q2, Q3, so we are counting on at least 20% growth this year. So we're confident to actually crack the EUR 100 million in terms of sales 2020. Statista, I think our basis 2019 was around EUR 63 million. Q1 was very strong. Q2, obviously, we had a slide dips, specifically in April, but then now Q3, they are fully back on track. So I think we expect to grow for the full year by like 20%, 25%, which should bring us somewhere around to somewhere around EUR 75 million turnover for Statista this year.

[Operator]

The next question is from Patrick Wellington, Morgan Stanley.

[Patrick Thomas Wellington]

Udo, in your statement, you say that the Out-of-Home advertising business bounced back in the third quarter. Some areas have even seen catch-up effects, some revenue growth compared with the corresponding period. So my first question is, which are those parts of the outdoor business that have seen those revenue growth compared with the corresponding period? Secondly, a question about the SME business. I think some people think that the SME business is going to take a bit of a reversal in 2021, having been robust in 2020 as a sort of start of year subscription effects roll off, what's your view on that? Do you think that -- what do you think the outlook for that SME business is going into next year? And then thirdly, a question, 2 parts really, a bit about the guidance. The first thing is, have you seen any response from advertisers to the Pfizer vaccine news this year? Do you think that's kind of firmed up their advertising, planning and advertising intentions? And as a second part of that, going back to the idea that your Q4 guidance is relatively conservative, you're already indexing in Outdoor at 95 in October. You're growing in digital and content. Your direct media is well ahead. And you're saying there's no substantial impact from the renewed lockdown, that would suggest that you're more likely to be close to 0 or better in Q4 one might think?

[Udo Müller, Founder, Chairman of Management Board & Co]

Yes, so growth was mainly coming, let's say, from local businesses. Local sales is actually, especially now in the second half of the year and on previous year level and some [ dips ] even above that. So this was clearly -- it was surprisingly robust throughout the whole year, by the way. And I think this was also a second question. We don't expect any change also going into the next year because, don't forget, our market share is still relatively low. If you think about local ad sales driven by, still mostly by newspapers and stuff like that from EUR 3 billion to EUR 4 billion. Nobody knows it 100%. So our market share is in single-digit -- in the single-digit areas there. So we -- that's why we are very convinced that we are here in a safe territory also to show a very strong development for last year. And this was always the reason why we were pushing hard into these local businesses, SMEs, because it's clearly less volatile in a crisis. And that's what you also see now, I mean the decline in outdoor is clearly driven by national advertisers. Local business is super stable, and this is -- we are very convinced that we're going to see the same development next year. And besides the local stuff, it's clearly programmatic demand. There is a very strong underlying structural growth. I mean also the share of programmatic was growing now in the crisis from 24% to almost 40%, 38%, 39%. And we're going to see the same next year. Programmatic demand is really pushing hard into the business. And we are benefiting here from our business segment portfolio because our know-how at technology, especially on the programmatic side, gives us a clearly competitive advantage here. And that's exactly we are benefiting from. So these are the key areas programmatic demand, especially in digital, products on one hand and the local demand on the other hand.

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

And on the guidance, just maybe 2 points or 3 points. The first one is yes, I think December has a good chance to be where October was, but I think November won't get on that level just because that kind of lockdown communications happened around happened around mid of October where people decided about what to do. So in general, it doesn't mean that there are, as we said, substantial impacts. But you always see a little bit of reaction. So I think not substantially something where we talk about 5, 6, 7, 8 points impact on 1 month. And I think that's something that is at least at the moment for November, realistic. I think as -- I think in Udo's part of the speech, he mentioned the sale of TubeOne and Ströer products. I think that's just because we referred to our reported revenues. That's equivalent to like EUR 5 million in Q4 or EUR 5 million or EUR 6 million or something between EUR 5 million and EUR 7 million, we would need to look it up again, but that is missing. We talked about the German Out-of-Home business in [Technical Difficulty] in that area. We still have blend and non-German blowUP business. I think countries like Belgium, Netherlands, the U.K., Poland. Unfortunately, the lockdown is harder. The advertising market is different. So even if that is meanwhile, only 7%, 8% of our Out-of-Home business, if you talk about an index maybe of 50 in a hard lockdown in that area, that also costs you maybe then 2 or 3 points on the total picture. And if I sum it up, that kind of negatives impacts that I mentioned, cost us for the group, probably at least 3 to 4 points. And that explains a little bit in combination what I said about November versus October and still a little bit of deviation expected for December, the range that we've given.

[Patrick Thomas Wellington]

That's great. And vaccine response from advertisers? Any guess?

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

Within a week, it's difficult to say. I mean, what we could see the -- that that lockdown didn't set the -- force all the advertisers to call out and get crazy. And I think it's the same with vaccine, vaccine that it didn't really -- yes, it's a topic in the discussions. But it has not really yet materialized into any changed input for the rest of the year. I think for us, it's more good news when we look at next year, because I think when you end the year with some kind of lockdown period, then start with more winter months, maybe advertisers would be a bit cautious in January and February, not knowing what the first half of the year might bring. So knowing that there is vaccine ahead, some time, and it's not just, I don't know, anytime -- without a specific date, but coming closer, I think that has probably more a supporting character for next year and commitments and going maybe also more ambitious into the start of next year. But I don't think that this will really change the game in the rest of the quarter. At least we haven't received any signals for that for any year at campaign.

[Operator]

And the next question is from Nizla Naizer, Deutsche Bank.

[Fathima-Nizla Naizer]

I have 3 final questions from my end. Firstly, given the higher base that we could now expect for revenue in 2020, how should we think of 2021? So could it be a year, for example, revenue goes back to the 2019 levels after the dip we saw this year? So some color around how you're thinking about the future projection, would be great. Secondly, on direct media. Could you give us some color on what you mentioned about buying out the minorities in the Direct media segment? So do you now own 100% of that entire business? How much did that cost you if you can share that detail? And also, is Ranger currently impacted by this set of lockdown measures? Or is it business as usual in Q4 for Ranger? My final question is on digital Out-of-Home and content media. Very strong margins in Q3. What really drove that margin performance? And then if you look at Q4, last year, you had 40% sort of EBITDA margins, and it's probably the strongest quarter of the year. Could it be a similar scenario in Q4 this year? Could margins potentially be higher on the back of some of the initiatives that you are doing? Some color there would be great.

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

Yes, let's start maybe with the Ranger question, no impact yet. We just see that nice growth trend since they can sell again, and I think that was mid of May when it started, that continues. So no impact on the business so far. They are growing. They're hiring people and also the product partners from energy and telco, they are not nervous or anything like that around the crisis. And I think our sales guys have learned how to handle it with the masks. I think your first question, could 2021 be like 2019? Yes, could be. It's -- I think when I look at the non Out-of-Home businesses, with a little impact in April, May, the rest of the year was pretty much almost normal or sometimes better. So even with COVID, on the basis of how we look at it now, I think there, I would say 2021 should be better than 2020 and should be better than 2019. For Out-of-Home, I think it would be fantastic if 2021 would be where it was in 2019 given the current situation. But it's still difficult to predict and see what the infection rates are, what kind of lockdowns we see, what really vaccine brings. So it's really just too early. I think it will be crucial to see how Q1 is developing, but that will take a couple of weeks until we know a little bit more there.

[Christian Baier, CFO & Member of Management Board]

Nizla, on your direct media question, in our call centers, we still have a minority shareholder in there, roughly 15% of shares. That's what he held. We did have a call option, which given the good business performance, we actually decided to exercise. So we bought these remaining 15% for also roughly EUR 15 million that was paid in cash. So that means now for the call centers, we have 100% shareholding. The same is true with regard to Ranger. And then obviously, the third subsegment there is Asam, where we hold 51% of shares.

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

Margin for Q4, I don't think that we can beat last year's margin. I think we also won't be exactly there because I mean Q4 in general delivers a lot of profit, and that's also driven by some kind of infrastructure elements of our business that we have. And that's why I think that is one impact as revenue missing, it's hard to beat that. And at the same time, I think we also started reinvesting again also in growing sales forces since the summer months. So in Q3, you somehow see that revenues are picking up again, while you have the cost savings that you've initiated in Q2. I think in Q4 revenues continue to go up, but you also get more towards a normalized cost base while your revenues are still not fully where they've been before. So I don't see any realistic scenario where we could improve last year's Q4 margin. And in the Digital Out-of-Home and Content segment, I think the margin was driven on the one hand, that driven by the fact that public video bounced back quite nicely, which is an important margin driver. I think as I said before, we've used the first couple of months to improve our cost base also in online area in our portal business. But then in Q3, the revenues were even ahead of what we were assuming. And that's where the incremental money has really high drop-through rate in that area. And I think that were the 2 key drivers. But I would say that the kind of the bounce back of public video is really crucial for our group performance and that was one of the success factors in Q3 and also gives us confidence for the last weeks and next year.

[Operator]

And the next question is from Karin So, JPMorgan.

[Karin So, Analyst]

Good set of results. You have answered most of my questions, I just have one remaining. Maybe could you talk about the structural changes as TV advertising has also been quite strong in recent weeks. For example, like what are your national customers saying in regards to like ad budget shifting away from traditional media?

[Christian Schmalzl, Co]

Well, I think, in general, it's difficult to talk from one quarter to the other about the long-term changes. But in our view, I think the general development hasn't really changed because we don't see that linear television is really growing or even keeping their audiences. I think all the video demand services have been growing massively throughout the crisis, and that will just take share of audience. And therefore, combining less TV with different media, that kind of trend will continue. And I think what we see, especially on that push for digital Out-of-Home, I think that that's feature in the media plan that digital Out-of-Home can overcompensate the decline of the reach of linear TV. I think that is at least mid to long term, an ongoing trend. And I wouldn't say that, that has stopped or changed through the crisis, I would rather say it has accelerated. Nevertheless, yes, TV, I think I've just seen the RTL numbers. So they've -- I think they've done a really good job in Q3. And maybe in some areas, they also benefit from being still the biggest medium and the total [indiscernible] when clients revitalize their spending there, of course, on top of the range. But I think there's one interesting aspect when we look at the last 6 months, TV commitments were always quite fixed. And I think TV stations in Germany have been very good in protecting their revenues despite the audience decline because they have those quite robust annual commitments from advertisers. And the fear of losing discounts was always made it difficult for advertisers just to correct their year-over-year commitment legacy. And I think that has definitely changed in the last couple of months. So TV stations have to be more flexible to defend it. And my feeling is that while in the past, like 90%, 95% of the revenues for TV were already locked in. I think that number will be definitely lower because clients have learned and negotiated one thing, more flexibility in the crisis, and that will last, I think, also for the coming years. And my feeling is that, that could be a good opportunity for us also to improve month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter. And because there's more free money in the market that is not already fully committed with TV stations. But again, back to what I said at the beginning, I think the macro trends of structural changes haven't really developed in a completely different direction in the last couple of months throughout the crisis.

[Operator]

And we haven't received any further questions, so I'll hand back to the speakers for closing remarks.

[Udo Müller, Founder, Chairman of Management Board & Co]

Okay. Thank you very much, everybody. And I hope we could satisfy your interest in what we're reporting in the morning. And stay healthy, and we hope to hear you soon. Bye-bye.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may disconnect now.