Centaur Media sees advertising revenue growth of 21%
Publisher Centaur Media expects to see a 21% rise in advertising revenue, while also being set to report a growth in print advertising by 7%.
Having recently restructured the operation, taking titles such as New Media Agency and Design Week online only and scrapping their printed versions, Centaur has said that the last two months have offered strong trading, and that its underlying revenues have risen by 10% on last year.
Geoff Wilmot, chief executive of Centaur commented: "The improved trading conditions experienced in financial year 2011 have continued into the current financial year.
"The recently announced restructuring and rationalisation, our portfolio of market leading brands and our strengthened management team, will enable Centaur to benefit more rapidly from continuing recovery and from the recent investments in digital services. This will provide a robust platform from which to deliver accelerated revenue growth and margin improvement in the medium term,” continued Wilmot.
As a result of the restructure, the company has also said that it expects to see redundancy costs of £2.5 million.
The events revenue within the business have also grown by 20% on the same period last year, while the company has said that it is targeting a pre-tax margin of 20% in the next 12-18 months driven through investment in new products, partly due to the cost savings implemented.
In reaction to this announcement, Anna Smee, business strategist at Hundred Consulting said that in the era of digital, print would only be successful where there is full integration online and offline, and that there was clear added value for the reader.
"As we have seen with The Financial Times, the pay-wall option is one way to charge consumers for access to information and expert opinion,” continued Smee.
"Media companies are having to find new ways to generate revenue and recognise that the consumer no longer reads one magazine in a vacuum.
"The way people consume media has changed fundamentally. They browse multiple sources to build up a picture of what's happening in their specific sector. As a result, the purchase of individual titles is falling as readers turn to the internet for news and data.
"Centaur's restructure, which brings together groups of subject matter experts rather than keep them in silos, will enable them to cater to this trend.
"The axing of many of its smaller publications will enable Centaur to integrate the websites associated with those magazines into a smaller number of subject matter-specific sites — or one site.
"This will be less confusing for readers who will now be able to access a greater amount of relevant information via a single website.
"Centaur's stronger events revenues reflect the rebirth of a sector that was decimated during the early years of the downturn.
"The events and hospitality sector is a barometer, if ever there were one, of business confidence because exhibitions are generally booked twelve months in advance,” Smee continued.