This helped to offset a further drop at DMGT's regional division, which it has denied is up for sale.
According to a trading update today (27 July), DMGT's Associated Newspapers unit, which includes the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and freesheet Metro, suffered a 3% year-on-year drop in revenues to £201m for the third quarter of its financial year to 4 July.
The unit has continued to cut costs and, recently, folded its digital business into the wider group in a cost-saving move.
But underlying advertising revenues, which exclude the closed London Lite and the sold London Evening Standard, rose 13%, fuelled by a surge in digital revenues (up 46% on the year) and display (up 15% on the year).
Retail, the largest display category, grew by 19% in the period. Associated’s pure-play digital activities were up 16%, including a rise in its jobs’ businesses.
The group said the advertising trends had broadly continued in July.
Northcliffe Media, the group’s regional arm which houses more than 100 titles, including the Hull Daily Mail, reported revenues were down 4% to £66m.
Overall advertising revenues at the division were down 4% on the year.
Northcliffe Media, like other regional newspaper groups, has suffered from a tough market and has cut more than 1,000 jobs since 2008.
A recent national newspaper report claimed DMGT was in discussions with Trinity Mirror and Johnson Press over the sale of the entire Northcliffe division.
However, DMGT's finance chief Peter Williams said today it was not talking to with other publishers about offloading its troubled regional titles.
Williams said: "We can confirm that we are not in discussions over proposals to offload them, nor do we have any expectation of entering any discussions over their sale."
Williams said DMGT executives were discussing a number of initiatives with rival publishers.
He pointed to initiatives such as Johnston Press appointing DMGT as its official online recruitment partner for its online jobs site Jobsite last year, as the type of conversations the group was having.
DMGT put Northcliffe up for sale in 2005 with a price tag between £1.2bn and £1.5bn, but subsequently took it off the market after bids failed to match its valuation.
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