Media In The City: Emap Sees Pre-Tax Profits Fall

Each week, MediaTel INSIGHT brings NewsLine readers a round-up of the latest news from the City affecting the media industry.

This week, Emap announced that its pre-tax profits were down 13% for the year ending March 31, to £193 million (Full Story).

The results, which also revealed that revenues at the company’s digital division increased by 32%, followed the departure of Emap CEO Tom Maloney.

SMG, owner of Virgin Radio, said that its television airtime revenues are expected to decline by 7% for the first half of this year due to a weakness in interactive TV revenues.

However, Virgin Radio’s revenues were up by 8% with the station showing particularly strong online revenue growth (Full Story).

Meanwhile, UTV announced that its operating profit for 2006 remained broadly flat at £24.8 million.

The group said that increased profits from its continuing radio operations were offset by reduced revenue in its television division and start-up losses at its new radio stations in Edinburgh and Belfast (Full Story).

There were also rumours that the Treasury could sell off Channel 4 for £1 billion once Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister (Full Story).

In addition, there were rumours that a private equity consortium headed by US group Providence Equity Partners could make a £7.5 billion bid for Virgin Media (Full Story).

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