Publisher Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) said today its adjusted first-half pretax profits rose 7 per cent to £108.7 million (€159 million).
Revenues rose 2 per cent to £1.08 billion (€1.58 billion), helped by the company's business-to-business publishing, exhibitions and radio divisions.
The financial figures and comparisons were calculated according to the newly adopted IFRS accounting rules.
Analysts expected the company to post profits of £106 million and revenues of £1.07 billion, according to the median estimate of seven brokerages polled by Reuters.
National newspapers such as the Daily Mailand London's Evening Standardhave seen some improvement in display advertising but not in classified ads, DMGT said, while there is "little sign of an advertising recovery in regional newspaper titles.
"The advertising market remains volatile and very short term, but there have been some recent signs of a slight recovery in display advertising," DMGT said.
The Northcliffe regional newspaper unit's ad revenues fell 6.4 per cent.