Group founder Leo Kirch

"As expected, the television advertising market has been difficult in the first three months of the year," said ProSeibenSat.1's chief executive Urs Rohner.

Mr Rohner stressed that the broadcaster's programming supply is "secure, irrespective of KirchMedia's insolvency" for the whole of this year, and 86% of next year's content has also been agreed.

KirchMedia supplied more than two thirds of last year's programming.

Profits dive

ProSiebenSat.1 posted a 44% fall in operating profit for the first three months of this year.

Pre-tax profit before interest payments dropped to 21.6m euros ($19.4m) from 39.1m euros year-earlier.

This year's content is signed up

Net profit slipped to 5.7m euros compared to 16.4m and sales fell 5% to 489m.

Cash flow was down 7% on the year-earlier period at 287.3m euros.

The advertising market is likely to remain weak and "no significant recovery can be expected" before the October-to-December period of this year, said Mr Rohner.

ProSiebenSat.1's share price dived more than 7% on Frankfurt's index of mid-sized stocks on the news, though it had climbed back by mid-morning to trade just 1% lower.

'On target' for profit

EM.TV also posted a hefty loss for 2001, writing off 240m euros worth of assets.

EM.TV's net losses came in at 374m euros, down 72% from 1.34bn in 2000.

But the firm said core earnings and sales had risen and it has put in place "all the preconditions" to return to profit in 2004.

The improvement in core earnings included gains from the sale of part of its stake in SLEC, the owner of Formula One motor racing.

EM.TV still owns 16.7% of SLEC, which it is also planning to sell.