SMG (SMG).

Investors Chronicle, September, 2004

A healthy ITV means a healthy SMG. The group's television operations delivered a 9 per cent increase in advertising revenues, which translated to a 35 per cent increase in operating profits, to GBP8.4m - demonstrating the businesses' much vaunted operational gearing. SMG is better off than ITV, because its share of the television audience has not deteriorated, and it has negotiated an inflation-only structure for paying its share of growing network programming costs.

But the group's radio business is in a less happy state. Management believes that RAJAR, the industry audience research body, does a bad job of measuring Virgin listeners, and says "artificial volatility" has played a part in its weak performance. Turnover was down, as were profits. The group's...

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