Pre-tax profits grew at a faster rate than turnover, which increased by 9% to £2.1bn. The board said that it expected 2005 would be another year of progress in which DMGT would look for opportunities to grow by launching new products and by making small acquisitions at attractive prices.
At Associated Newspapers total advertising revenues increased by 10.7%, with the Daily Mail achieving record revenues. Highlights included Metro increasing its display revenue by 27% and classified by 21%, as well as increasing its national distribution to 1m copies daily.
DMGT said there was difficulty in forecasting the trend for advertising, but that the copmany was moving into 2005 with additional colour capacity and pagination available to the national titles.
The Evening Standard's circulation suffered over the year, down by 6.6% to 385,000. The Daily Mail's was down by 0.5% to 2,430,000 and the Mail on Sunday's was down by 0.25%.
At the regional newspapers business, Northcliffe Newspapers, adjusted operating profit was up by 7% to £100.5m, on turnover up 7% to £519m, but there were continued declines in circulation, particularly for the evening titles.
Information publishing, financial publishing and exhibitions all increased operating profit and turnover. Adjusted operating profit was down slightly at DMG Broadcasting because of investment in Teletext Holidays.
In its Australian radio business, revenues from the metropolitan stations were up by more than 30% and the Nova stations in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth are all now number one for their target demographics.
The company also announced the acquisition of IT company Lewtan Technologies by DMG Information.
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