Scottish broadcaster STV has reported a 15 per cent rise in operating profit in the first half of the year, as well as a 13 per cent increase in digital revenues.
According to STV's interim results published today, overall revenues were up 1 per cent to £47.6 million, compared to £47.2 million in the first half of 2011.
Operating profit was recorded at £8.1 million in the first half of 2012 and pre-tax profit at £7 million, a rise of 8 per cent on the previous year.
Digital revenues for its consumer business were said to have grown by 13 per cent to £3 million "as we enhance our consumer services across our digital channels".
At the end of 2011 STV reported a 69 per cent increase in digital revenues from £4.2 million in 2010 to £7.1 million in 2011.
Today STV reported that more than 60 per cent of its broadcast audience visits STV online with "growth in unique users generated from mobile devices" also said to be increasing "rapidly".
"Our mobile app strategy is addressing this trend with the upgrade of our highly popular STV News app and the launch of our STV Player app on iOS and Android devices."
STV's online local offerings are now said to be visited by more than 400,000 unique users each month.
In May STV announced the launch of city-wide sites for Edinburgh and Glasgow, which saw the collection of Edinburgh's previous sites for the North, West and South East - which were first launch in February last year - brought together as one.
"We continue to explore additional revenue generating opportunities to extend our consumer offering and the introduction of metro sites to the STV Local portfolio will provide further opportunities for commercial partnerships with providers of geo-targeted services," today's interim results report added.
STV added that its broadcast evening news is now viewed by 25 per cent of the Scottish population.
"In addition to our comprehensive schedule of news programming, our new current affairs programme, Scotland Tonight, which has aired during H1 is already Scotland’s most popular current affairs programme."
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