Tamedia with lower sales - more profit thanks to special effects

The result increased in particular due to lower pension costs: the conversion rate of the Tamedia pension fund was reduced.

Sales fell by 5.7% to CHF 475.1 million in the first half of the year. At operating level, operating profit (EBIT) grew by 55.3% to CHF 95.2 million. This growth is primarily attributable to lower depreciation and amortization due to the extended useful life of the printing centers.

Continuous decline in advertisements

The main reason for the drop in sales is the 12 percent decline in the print advertising market compared to the previous year, as Tonini said at a telephone media conference on Tuesday. The trend is expected to continue at a similar rate in the second half of the year. The decline has accelerated in recent years, from 4 percent in 2014 to 9 percent in 2015 and 11 percent in 2016.

The biggest drop in advertising in the first half of 2017 was in the Sunday press (-26%) and the financial and business press (-19%).

Paid media with 7.4 percent less revenue

The operating income of all paid daily and weekly newspapers and magazines fell by 7.4 percent to CHF 296.2 million. Print media revenues fell by 12 percent, while digital subscription revenues developed positively.

According to Tonini, the number of digital subscriptions has increased by almost 4,000. The offer of day passes got off to a successful start in June: On average, around 1000 such passes were sold per week. The Tamedia boss believes that these figures are likely to increase significantly in the second half of the year.

It is important for the company to "create as many new subscription relationships as possible". Tonini speaks of an "opportunity for paid culture". He is convinced that users are willing to pay money for high quality.

In the Commuter Media division, which includes the 20-minute media (print and online) as well as the investments in foreign titles, operating income fell by 9.8 percent to CHF 71.8 million. Here too, the decline is mainly due to lower print advertising.

Investments in digital offerings

With its non-publishing offerings, which include the particularly successful real estate portal homegate.ch, Tamedia achieved an operating income of CHF 117.2 million, which is practically on a par with the previous year (+0.2 percent).

Overall, the offerings from the Marketplaces and Ventures business division and Tamedia's digital journalistic media contributed CHF 174.8 million (previous year CHF 155.4 million) or 37.1 per cent to total sales.

Tamedia intends to invest further in digital offerings in the coming years, both journalistic and non-journalistic. Tonini described advertising on news portals with commercials as a major growth area. A video strategy is to be launched this fall.

Newspapers retain their "DNA

Regarding the new organization of the Tamedia editorial offices announced last week with two new editorial offices in German-speaking Switzerland and French-speaking Switzerland, Tonini emphasized that each newspaper would retain its "DNA". The titles would continue to have their individual positioning, basic orientation and conceptual design.

The editorial offices of the individual newspapers would decide on the front page and would have sovereignty over commentary. In contrast, forces would be pooled for cross-title topics: A "Tamedia editorial team" will be set up in German-speaking Switzerland and French-speaking Switzerland.

Tamedia expects this reorganization to result in a lower cost base. As already emphasized, there will be no redundancies. However, Tonini refers to the fluctuation that is to be exploited. (SDA/hae)

¹ as at 31.12.2016
² Equity to total assets
³ Margin refers to operating income
⁴ The average number of employees does not include employees of associated companies / joint ventures.

Photo: hae/advertising week