EMAP Earmarks £23m For New Product Launches, Results In Line

EMAP Consumer EMAP Consumer, which houses the majority of the group’s consumer magazine titles, saw advertising revenues rise by 5% in a market estimated by the Advertising Association (AA) to be up by 2%. Circulation revenues rose by 8%, driven largely by Heat magazine as expected, which saw its average weekly sales jump by 56%.

Lehman Brothers had predicted advertising revenue growth of 5.8% and circulation revenue growth of 9.2% at the Consumer division.

Closer, the group’s new women’s weekly magazine, is now selling over 300,000 copies a week. EMAP invested £10 million in the title in the 2002/03 period and it is expected to break even by 2004/05.

EMAP Performance Performance, which holds the company’s radio and television interests, saw turnover rise by 12% to £155 million (2% on an underlying basis). This was boosted by strong television revenue growth and launch activity.

The group’s radio revenues slightly underperformed the market during the year. Overall radio advertising grew by around 3%, with national spend up 1% and local revenues up 5%, according to the RAB. Within this, EMAP’s radio revenues were down 1%, with approximately 70% of revenues coming from national advertisers.

Its relative performance was markedly different in the first half, down 7% against a market up 3%, to the second half, up 5% and outperforming a market up 3%. H2 figures were helped by a strong performance from Kiss in London in the final quarter of the financial year.

EMAP Communications The group’s business-to-business division, EMAP Communications, saw turnover decline by 1% to £192 million, excluding digital operations. EMAP says that this is a resilient performance in what is an extremely tough B2B environment across most of Europe.

B2B display advertising revenues declined by 4%, an outperformance of a B2B display market that is estimated by the AA to be down by 6% overall.

Outlook and current trading EMAP has earmarked £23 million for new product development in 2003/4, with recently-launched magazines in the UK, France and the US to receive £13 million of this budget.

The group will also look to make further bolt-on acquisitions, with a focus on the UK and European B2B markets and the UK radio sector.

The company says that trading for the first two months of the year has largely been consistent with that of the last quarter of 2002. In the UK, consumer magazine circulation has been healthy and consumer magazine advertising also continues to show good growth.

Radio advertising has significantly improved since the year-end, with signs that EMAP is now outperforming the market. Revenues were up 20% year-on-year in April against a weak comparative in 2002, but with London revenues remaining strong the outlook is encouraging, says the group.

B2B recruitment advertising has had a poor start to the year with continued volatility from week to week, while B2B display advertising has levelled out year-on-year.

EMAP says that despite a ‘reasonably’ good start to the year, it remains cautious about any material improvement in the media markets generally.

Shares in EMAP were up by 2.2% at 836p by mid-morning today.