Michael Del Nin and Christoph Mainusch, Co-Chief Executive Officers, said in a joint statement, "Our businesses enjoyed a strong start to the year, although economic uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in reductions in overall spending by advertisers in March, which has continued into April and is expected to negatively impact our financial performance in the second quarter."

Net revenues for the quarter were 143.8 m USD. Subscription revenues and carriage fees helped to buffer the decline, increasing by 7 percent.

Bulgaria showed the steepest drop in net revenues, down by 12.1 percent, followed by Slovenia, down by 6.3 percent. Slovakia by contrast had an increase of 3.9 percent, and Romania was up by 1.8 percent. CME also operates stations in the Czech Republic, where revenues declined by 2.2 percent.

CME is completing a merger with the Czech company PPF. More than 99 percent of votes cast at the special general meeting of shareholders on 27 February 2020 were in favour of approving the merger agreement. Because of the pending proposed merger, CME did not hold a conference call with investors and reporters.