Results from two of Europe’s largest broadcasters on Tuesday brought hope of an upturn in advertising revenues after more than a year of continuous decline.

RTL, the pan-European broadcaster, said that in spite of reporting a drop in like-for-like sales of 8.3 per cent at €3.7bn ($5.5bn) for the nine months to the end of September, there were signs of a thaw after a long advertisers’ hibernation.