A recovery in advertising is still not expected until at least the fourth quarter of this year, EMAP chief executive, Robin Miller, told a Merrill Lynch conference yesterday.
Miller said consumer magazine advertising in the UK is currently ‘fine’; France is ‘good’; business to business (B2B) is flat and radio remains poor. He believes that the magazine market can achieve top line growth of 5-6% in the longer term, but added that there is a need to continually ‘tweak’ products in order to keep them ‘fresh’.
There was speculation earlier in the month that EMAP is considering spinning off its radio assets into a separately listed division (see EMAP Radio Business Spin-Off Speculated By Reports). This would allow a higher market rating for the group’s radio portfolio, enabling EMAP to get a better deal in any radio mergers that are anticipated following the introduction of the Government’s Communications Bill.
There was no comment on these reports from Miller at the conference and radio was described as a ‘work in progress’, according to Merrill Lynch.
