Like many of its peers in the publishing world, Irish group Independent News and Media (INM) has been hurt by dwindling demand for physical newspapers. In the six months to June 2017, the group reported a 9 per cent drop in distribution revenue and 8 per cent decline in sales from advertising. Together these two divisions dragged the top line down by the same proportion to €148m (£137m) while underlying pre-tax profit fell by a fifth to €14.9m.
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Traffic to the group’s news websites continues to grow, particularly at recently acquired site Carsireland.ie. But demand for digital advertising is increasingly mobile; this move away from direct transactional selling stunted digital sales growth.
