Archant suffers 60% drop in profits after ad slump

Regional publisher Archant saw a £4.4 million drop in operating profit in the first six months of this year, a decrease of more than 60 per cent.

According to figures released today Archant's operating profit fell to £2.6 million, while total revenues were also down by £2.8 million year-on-year.

Newspaper and printing turnover suffered a decrease of 7.2 per cent at £44.9 million, blamed largely on reductions in print advertising revenues which alone fell 13 per cent.

"Performance of the business has been adversely impacted by reductions in newspaper print advertising, driven principally by economic factors, government cutbacks and steep increases in input prices," Archant chairman Richard Jewson was quoted in today's (5 August) release.

But despite the decreases he remained positive that better profits in the second half of the year would enable growth in the company's profits next year.

"We are transforming our traditional businesses for the changing world and developing new businesses, taking full advantage of changes in technology," he added.

"We are not waiting for the economy to improve to take action, and provided there is no further deterioration in our markets, we expect better profits in the second half to achieve our forecast for this year and to achieve growth in profits in 2012."

Digital revenues at Archant were on the up however, growing by 3.3 per cent to £3.1 million, with digital display revenues increasing by 10.9 per cent.

The publisher also claims unique visitors to its sites have also grown by more than a third, to an average of 3.6 million each month.

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