The Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) this morning issued a trading statement reporting a further weakening in advertising markets and the creation of necessary costs reductions in all of its consumer-facing businesses.
The company stated that the rest of the group has continued to perform well, meanwhile, with its information publishing division proving particularly strong since its last report in May.
The Group’s strategy of reduced dependence on traditional advertising markets is clearly on the right track, it was claimed, with a satisfactory overall trading performance expected for the full year.
DMGT’s broadcast operations have seen a mixed performance, however, with Teletext’s trading seeing a disappointing lack of improvement. The division’s total revenues for the full year are now expected to finish at around 15% down on last year.
Teletext is seeing declining revenues from its analogue television services as audiences decline, explained DMGT, stating that this had been accentuated by a tough market generally, online competition and tighter market capacity for last minute holidays. However, the company’s new digital services, which launched in June, have seen an encouraging start, while online revenues have performed well, adding 80% year on year.
DMG Radio, which operates stations mainly in Australia, expects to see like-for-like revenue growth of around 26% for the year, boosted in part by the completion of the Nova network, with its Brisbane launch in April.
Last month saw DMGT extend its business interests further into the online arena, with the acquisition of Zambeasy Ltd, publisher of Top-Consultant.com and Office Recruit Ltd publisher of officerecruit.co.uk in a deal worth £4.1 million (see DMGT Buys Online Recruitment Sites).
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