Scottish Radio Holdings detects an improvement in its prospects despite reporting flat underlying profits due to the slump in advertising revenue.
Scottish Radio, one of the largest media operators in Ireland, posted underlying pretax profit for the year of £15.5 million sterling, although overall turnover grew 5 per cent to £83.5 million.
An exceptional loss on disposal of Score Outdoor - the company's former outdoor poster business - of £21.2 million meant the company's bottom line was a pretax loss of £13.5 million compared to last year's profit of £11.1 million.
But the company said like-for-like radio and press revenues are ahead in the first two months of its new financial year compared to last year.
The final dividend is 2p, giving a total dividend of 18p, a rise of 3 per cent.
SRH are the second-largest regional newspaper owner in Ireland and last year bought the Kilkenny People group for over €35 million.
The company is also the biggest producer of weekly newspapers in Northern Ireland and owns the two largest independent radio stations in the North, Cool FM and Downtown Radio. It also owns the Republic's only independent national radio station, Today FM.