May 2013 Financial News

GML achieves growth amid economic challenges

May 29, 2013

Although challenged by uncertainties in the global and local economies, Guardian Media Limited (GML) achieved revenue growth of one per cent in 2012. At the group’s 97th Annual General Meeting at Capital Plaza, Port-of-Spain, yesterday chairman Dennis Gurley said GML had a robust balance sheet and is generating consistent and substantial free cash flow that will enable the company to fund growth in the future.

Gabriel Faria, GML’s managing director, said the Guardian newspaper leads the competition in the area of subscriptions. “The Guardian as a newspaper actually has the largest subscription base in T&T of all newspapers. We are the number one subscribed paper in T&T. That means more consumers make a decision to read the Guardian every morning through subscription base than any other newspaper in T&T,” he said.

Faria said fast growing digital subscription currently account for less than 10 per cent of traditional subscriptions but noted: “However, more and more people are getting their news digitally and what we need to do is provide our consumers with the ability to access their news where and when they want it. “We are developing new digital products that will allow our advertisers to participate in that audience more effectively.”

According to Faria, in a market that is not growing, the challenge is to find ways of getting a greater portion of the pie. “It safe to say that the market is not buoyant. What we as companies need to do is to find a way to get a larger share of the pie which is relatively constant and what we intend to offer a banker or any business is an opportunity to connect with their consumers better than our competitors. That is the game necessary for us to win,” he said.

Faria said in the print division, advertising revenues continued to be strong, driven mainly by growth in the special publications and classifieds sections. “Feedback from the market is that they are happy with the improvements in the Trinidad Guardian driven by Editor-in-Chief Judy Raymond,” he said. He added that advertising revenue also grew in the electronic media divisions, with radio and television showing revenue and contribution growth over the prior year.

“We also grew audience share in these segments. The most notable was CNC3, which achieved number one position in prime time over all local and international channels,” he said. The GML board approved an increase of final dividend from 0.34 per cent to 0.39 per cent per share.


Source:
Raphael John-Lall
Trinidad Guardian
Wednesday May 29, 2013

http://www.guardian.co.tt/business/2013-05-29/gml-achieves-growth-amid-economic-challenges