Media company Torstar reports $3.1-million Q4 loss, revenue down from year ago
Torstar Corp. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue fell.
The publisher of the Toronto Star newspaper reported a loss attributable to shareholders of $3.1 million or four cents per share for the quarter ended Dec. 31.
That compared with a profit attributable to shareholders of $8.7 million or 11 cents per share in the same quarter a year earlier.
Operating revenue totalled $144.9 million, down from $169.3 million.
On an adjusted basis, Torstar says it earned a profit of 15 cents per share for the quarter, down from an adjusted profit of 32 cents per share a year earlier.
Analysts on average had forecast $143.58 million in revenue and nine cents per share of earnings after adjustments, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon.
In addition to the Toronto Star, the company owns daily, community and commuter newspapers in numerous communities and a 56 per cent interest in VerticalScope, a Toronto-based digital media company.
“While results in the quarter continued to reflect ongoing challenges in the print advertising market, we were pleased with a number of important developments in our transformation efforts,” Torstar chief executive John Boynton said in a statement.
“Having launched digital subscriptions at the Star at the end of the third quarter, we ended the year with almost 10,000 paid digital-only subscriptions.”
Torstar holds an investment in The Canadian Press as part of a joint agreement with subsidiaries of the Globe and Mail and Montreal’s La Presse.
Companies in this story: (TSX:TS.B)
