AS Eesti Meedia, a media group belonging to Norway's Schibsted, grew its profit to 3.6 million euros last year; the year before the profit of the company was 865,999 euros.
The main source of the group's revenue was the profit from its subsidiaries and affiliates, which totaled 4.3 million euros last year. Holdings in the Kroonpress printing works and in the Postimees, SL Õhtuleht and Ühinenud Ajalehed (United Newspapers) brought to Eesti Meedia respectively 2.8 million, 445,000, 123,000 and 169 000 euros profit. The profit of the Kanal 21 television channel was 198,000 euros and that of the mail company AS Express Post 191,000 euros.
The turnover of AS Postimees, which is in the sole ownership of Eesti Meedia, was 11.4 million euros, of which the advertising revenue accounted for 47 percent or 5.4 million euros. The advertising revenue grew 25 percent on year. The Postimees subscription revenue fell over the year by nearly one percent to 5.07 million euros, accounting for 44.4 percent of the total revenue.
This year Postimees has set its aim at earning at least 20 percent more profit than in 2011. The company is planning to increase its profitability by the optimization of production volumes and keeping the advertising turnover in line with the volumes.
The profit of AS Schibsted Baltic totaled 368,359 euros; the year before the company made a loss of 423,847 euros. Last spring Schibsted acquired 100 percent of the second biggest news portal in Latvia, Tvnet.lv and at the end of the year the Latvian Russian-language Novonews.lv news portal was merged with Tvnet.
Uhinenud Ajalehed, which publishes five Estonian county papers collected a total turnover of 4.6 million euros and 257,000 euros profit last year. The company remained at the level of 2010, while the profit grew by nearly twice.
The sum total of the Eesti Meedia balance sheet was of 57.5 million euros as of the turn of the year. The value of subsidiaries and affiliates in the balance sheet was 47.3 million euros. The sum total of Eesti Meedia loan obligations was 22 million as of the end of the year and its stock capital 35 million euros.