The Daily Mail group posts a £311m operating profit for the year. Analysts cluster to praise this “solid” performance. And the media side of the business doesn’t have to hang its head in shame either. Though, predictably, print advertising revenue slithered by 5%, with circulation cash down 4%, Mail Online boosted its digital ad revenue by 46%. That’s £19m more than in 2013. It more than covers the print ad decline.

There is, in sum, an increasingly familiar feeling of swings and roundabouts. Print revenue (on the New York Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian) takes up the slack. And Mail Online (now rebooting as Daily Mail Online) has a good deal to crow about: unique browser totals hitting 12 million every day, UK readership addressing a monthly market 23.5 million strong, mobile phone followers bounding way over 10 million.

So this is the future… What’s not to like? Time to consult Mr Micawber. Remember that DM Online staff aren’t integrated with their print brethren. They’re totally separate, all 620 of them, including 370 journalists based in the UK, US and Oz. A 35% rise on 2013. Staffing costs are soaring as management aims for £80m ad money next year. Somebody has to take all those pictures of Kelly Brook; somebody has to churn out tales about her “ample assets” and shrivelled love life; nothing comes free in this cyberspace.

Set last year’s £62m from digital against £252m in total ad revenue then. We’re still, eight years of investment and much editorial professionalism later, seeing less than a quarter of the money involved arriving from online. Moreover, if you add circulation revenue plus a few extras to make up last year’s overall revenue of £598m, the DM online contribution is only just over a tenth of what was required to keep solid shareholders happy.

If online at the Mail were a stand-alone business, then, it would be declaring big losses. But “it’s not really meaningful to think about individual profitability” according to its top finance director. Online is part of a profitable whole. Online keeps tomorrow’s analysts purring. Just as long as they, and we, remember that the most popular newspaper web operation on the planet still wades through red ink as its swims on towards a blue horizon.