Scottish broadcaster STV saw pre-tax profits fall by more than 40% last year after its TV production arm, maker of shows including Catchphrase and Antiques Road Trip, missed its targets.
STV, which holds the ITV licences for Scotland, reported a 42% year-on-year fall in pre-tax profits to £9.8m.
Stripping out the exceptional items, STV had a good year operationally with pre-tax profits up by 10% to £19.1m.
Digital revenues grew by 25% to £6.6m last year, a rate being maintained in the first quarter of this year.
The broadcaster was forced to make a number of writedowns during the year, the most significant of which was a non-cash charge of £5.1m for STV Productions.
STV Productions saw revenues fall 38% year on year to £8.3m as the operation suffered from fewer commissions and lower deliveries of programmes than forecast.
The broadcaster insisted that STV Productions is back on track, saying: “Revenues secured so far for delivery in 2016 are above the level achieved for the whole of 2015 and the business has a strong pipeline of development activity.”
STV also took a £1.7m writedown relating to payouts to its top executives.
The provision is for costs in relation to “one-off discretionary management incentive plan payments”.
Net debt fell by 13% to £25.7m, the lowest level the company has managed since the mid-1990s.
Total revenues dipped by 3% to £116.5m.
STV said its local services, in Edinburgh and Glasgow, made £1m in revenues last year, attracting 130 advertisers new to TV.
Its city TV operation, which will be expanded to Aberdeen, Ayr and Dundee, is on track to break even in 2017.
