Listening to Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of German newspaper publisher Axel Springer, and Gerhard Zeiler, head of broadcaster RTL, talk about the German advertising market last week, one might have supposed they were talking about different countries.

While Mr Döpfner spoke of the "snow melting" this year, Mr Zeiler, like many of his colleagues at rival media giant Bertelsmann, was still sceptical that the depressed German advertising market would finally pick up speed.