Emap profits dip 4% as ad sales tumble at music mags

LONDON - Emap has seen pre-tax profit fall 4% to £68m over the first half of the year, as advertising revenues at its music division tumbled and with continuing difficulties at its French TV listings titles.

The publisher said that turnover was up by 3% to £522m and that when adjusted to exclude exceptional items, pre-tax profit was up by 2% to £96m.

Across the board, consumer advertising revenues were up by 3%, against an average rise of 6% for the industry as a whole.

At Emap Performance, which includes music magazines, radio and television such as Kerrang!, Mojo and Q, turnover fell by 3% to £78m, hit by declining radio advertising, which fell 2% during the period, and by a 12% fall in advertising at the music magazines. Emap said that only Mojo magazine had shown year-on-year revenue growth, adding that £1m had been generated by sales of mobile phone ringtones and wallpapers at Emap's "3" download service.

Emap France turnover was down 4% to £147m, while operating profit was down 13% to £27m. Amid what it described as a very tough trading environment, the division has suffered particularly from competition in the TV listings market, with two rival launches seeing newsstand sales for its two magazines fall by 25%.

Bright spots at the group were: two-year-old Closer magazine breaking even; Zoo, the men's weekly title, seeing its circulation move up to 220,000 newsstand copies a week from its Jan-Jun ABC of 200,125; and the Freeview music channel TV Hits now being one of Emap's top three television channels in terms of revenue.

Tom Moloney, chief executive of Emap, said: "We continue to make good progress across our portfolio, and in many parts of the business we have grown our revenues, increased market share and improved our profitability, against a trading backdrop that continues to be competitively intense, especially in France."

The company said it was confident of achieving full-year expectations. Shares in the company, listed on the London Stock Exchange, were trading up by 14p first thing this morning, to 825.5p, a rise of 1.73%.

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