Daily Mail owner faces slump in advertising

A SLUMP in advertising at the regional newspaper business of Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) took the shine off higher half year profits and prompted the media group to voice caution about the outlook.

DMGT said revenue at the regional business, Northcliffe Media, fell nearly a tenth to 120 million and profit dropped by 4m to 8m on the back of a 28 per cent fall in recruitment advertising.

The group, which has tried and failed to sell Northcliffe, said its advertising revenue in April and early May was down 10 per cent. "A challenging second half is expected," the group said.

DMGT said the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday both lost circulation in the period and underlying circulation revenues in its newspaper operations fell 2 per cent to 171m. But underlying advertising revenues rose 2 per cent to 183m driven by free newspaper Metro and internet operation MailOnline.

Strong trading in the business to business operations, which include operations such as Euromoney Institutional Investor, DMG Information and DMG Events, helped them to boost revenue by 14 per cent to 433m and profit by a tenth to 110m.

Group profits in the six months to 3 April rose by a fifth to 121m on a 3 per cent rise in revenue to 991m.

Chief executive Martin Morgan said: "Despite continuing momentum within our B2B operations, we remain cautious about the outlook for the full year due to the volatile and uncertain market conditions faced by our UK consumer businesses,"

Investors responded negatively, sending the shares down 36p or 7 per cent to 448.6p.