The Wireless Group has reported its first ever half year profit and management is confident that the company will go from strength to strength in the near future.
The radio firm saw turnover rise by 3.8% to £14.8 million in the six months to the end of June with revenues from the thirteen local stations up by 11.3% year on year to £9.2 million. TalkSport brought in £5.5 million over the same period, a decline of 9.2%, but this merely reflects the tough comparison with World Cup year. The national sports station still saw an operating profit of £0.9 million as against a loss of £0.3 million.
Overall, TWG posted underlying profits of £0.6 million compared to a loss of £1.7 million a year ago. The company said that profitability had been achieved ahead of forecasts and was especially commendable given the “severe conditions” faced by the media industry in the recent past.
After one-offs, losses narrowed from £8.9 million in the first six months of 2002 to £6.5 million in the same period this year. There has also been an encouraging start to the second half with revenues at the local stations up by 27% in July and 22% in August. Kelvin MacKenzie, chairman and chief executive of TWG, believes that this is a precursor of things to come.
“Our view is that the worst of the bad times are behind us,” he said. “Importantly, the group has used the last three years to quietly restructure and, particularly as a result of effective cost control, we are now in a position to see any improvement in revenue directly fall through to further improved operating profits.”
Despite his upbeat demeanour, MacKenzie still regards the official system for measuring radio audiences as an obstacle to progress. He claims that RAJAR’s diary method underestimates the true number of TalkSport listeners and today reiterated his intention to take legal action against the organisation.
An electronic audience measurement survey carried out by GfK Media for TWG concluded that TalkSport was the country’s most popular national commercial station, with a weekly reach of 8 million adult listeners. By contrast, RAJAR calculates that the station only reaches around 2.3 million people per week.
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