Pre-tax profits, before items, fell £4m to £7.8m year-on-year for the six months to March 31.
The company said it was encouraged by the performance of the local advertising market, which was more resilient in the face of the current economic squeeze.
Advertising revenues across the group rose 3% year-on-year while like-for-like overall sales rose from £34m to £40m. The company said April's performance had been steady.
The group's publishing division Score Press, which publishes 41 weekly regional newspapers in the UK, Scotland and Ireland, increased first-half advertising revenues by 55%. This figure included a substantial contribution from the Irish regional and national weekly titles -- including Ireland on Sunday, The Ulster Star, The Kilkenny People and the Londonderry Sentinel -- it bought last year.
Score's outdoor billboard advertising unit also performed well with a 15% growth in revenues to £8.4m.
The company is to pay an interim dividend of 6p a share, up from 5.3p a share last year.
On Wednesday, it was reported that discussions with a number of potential buyers, including its 29% shareholder SMG, collapsed.
SRH's share price, which yesterday fell 7.5p, began to recover slightly this morning trading up 0.5p on its opening price to 1,097.5p.