The parent company of the Press Association reported a rise in operating profits of a quarter to £9.8m last year, but warned of the rising threat of a new wave of digital news and content rivals.
PA Group, which owns the UK news agency, reported a 6% fall in total turnover to £99.4m.
However, the company said that after stripping out some of its joint-venture activity – the group sold its 50% stake in Canada Newswire to partner UBM in 2012 – like-for-like revenues were up from £90m.
Pre-tax profits were £12m, down on 2012’s £38.5m which was boosted by more than £26m from the CNW stake sale.
The core Press Association business saw revenues drop slightly, from £62.7m to £60.5m, with profits up from £3.3m to £5m.
Clive Marshall, chief executive of PA Group, admitted the business is being squeezed by an explosion of digital news sources and outlets.
Adjusted operating profits at PA actually fell by 6% and the pre-tax profit figure of £5m was boosted by a non-cash element of interest credits relating to its pension fund.
“2013 proved to be another challenging year for the media industry,” he said. “We are acutely aware that our business will need to continually adapt to reduce our dependence on traditional media by developing a new range of services that will enable us to fully capitalise on the huge demand for compelling, quality multi-media content.”
Nevertheless Marshall said that PA benefitted from a range of big media stories, including the death of Lady Thatcher, birth of Prince George, and killing of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, London.
“The biggest story of 2013 was the royal baby,” said Marshall. “We ran thousands of words and hundreds of pictures on the wire. On video, we streamed live pictures from outside the hospital and they were watched more than 5m times. It is a good example of how we have evolved our services to make the most of every opportunity.”
Marshall took home a total remuneration package of £690,000, down on the £984,000 in 2012.
Staff wages, salaries and pension costs rose from £50m to £53m as employee numbers grew slightly to 1,239.
The biggest corporate move made by PA Group last year was the sale of weather forecasting business MeteoGroup, a hugely successful investment, for £158.5m to General Atlantic.
As a result, PA Group said it will record an exceptional profit on the sale of almost £128m in its 2014 results, which will be published next year.
PA Group is owned by a large consortium of shareholders, including all of the major national and regional newspaper publishers, with Daily Mail & General Trust and Trinity Mirror two of the largest.
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