The company made a A$45.1 million loss after taking impairment and restructure charges totalling A$159 million.

APN’s net profit fell 24 percent on the previous year, to A$78 million.

Revenue nudged up by just one per cent to A$1.07 billion, from A$1.059 billion.

The company – the largest newspaper publisher in New Zealand – confirmed it would form a joint venture with Quadrant Private Equity to expand its outdoor advertising business in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

CEO Brett Chenoweth said the year had been one of the most challenging the company had faced.

It was now in a strong position to improve, he said.

“Through our targeted program of cost management, product development and changing how we conduct our businesses, we are now in a stronger position to take the next steps in the company’s development,” Mr Chenoweth.

“We continue to enjoy resilient performances from our Australian outdoor and radio businesses.

“New Zealand remains behind prior-year comparisons that preceded the impact of the Christchurch earthquake.”

Outdoor advertising veteran Pierce Cody’s resignation from the APN board was announced on Wednesday.

Herald & Weekly Times managing director Peter Blunden

TOP-SELLING tabloid the Herald Sun will launch its digital subscription model next month with a A$5 million advertising campaign.

It follows sister paper The Australian’s digital subscription launch last October.

A new mobile edition will be released and heraldsun.com.au will have a fresh design as part of the initiative.

Readers will be able to sign-up for a two-month free trial.

The website will feature new sections, including SuperFooty Live HQ, which has an interactive match centre with scores and statistics; plus TrueCrimeScene, anchored by veteran detective Charlie Bezzina.

The marketing campaign will embrace TV, press, digital display, digital performance and search media.

“We have created a new digital offering to meet the changing needs of our readers while remaining committed to producing Australia’s best newspaper,” said Peter Blunden, managing director of the newspaper’s publisher, Herald & Weekly Times.

“This move is about strengthening our relationship with readers and expanding ways in which they can connect with us to receive news and information that matters to them.”

A HWT spokesperson told PANPA the company would release a launch date in early March.

The pricing model – not necessarily the price – would be similar to that of The Australian, which is also owned by News Limited.

“There will be a fresh design and we will use a freemium model where some content is free and other content will be paid for,” they said.

The new mobile site will feature news, SuperFooty, sport, entertainment, business and most importantly, live AFL scores.

News Ltd is expected to make an announcement about results of The Australian’s digital subscription strategy soon.

West Australian Newspapers’ boss Chris Wharton has announced his company has made profits of A$163.1 million for the first six months of the year.

The profit has been registered by Seven West Media, a company created by West Australian Newspapers when it bought TV partner, Seven Media Group, in a A$4.1 billion merger.

“The results were really good,” Mr Wharton told PANPA.

“We’ve been rewarded in our share price.

“I think the market recognises that in tough times, all Seven West businesses have performed well,” he said.

Group CEO David Leckie said the merger had proven a “huge success” in a “very, very, very tough market”.

He cautioned that the advertising market continued to “pose challenges” for the group, which includes daily metro The West Australian, regional newspapers, the Seven TV network, a 50 percent stake in Yahoo!7 and Pacific Magazines.

The West Australian and regional newspapers posted earnings of A$66.5 million on revenues of A$185.6 million, down 1.6 percent on the corresponding period last year.

Newsprint costs were down 7.2 percent, which Mr Wharton attributed to the decision to source paper from offshore.

The newspaper arm of the business would focus on building its digital footprint and growing circulation.

The appointment of a new circulation senior executive is expected soon.

“We’ve got our verticals in place,” Mr Wharton said, adding that WAN would launch a motoring vertical “soon”.

When the merger was given the green light by shareholders last April, WAN took on more than A$1 billion in debt to make the purchase.

The PANPA Ad Awards are on for 2012. Enter now for the chance to be honoured in our region’s largest in-house newspaper advertising awards.

The annual PANPA Ad Awards celebrate in-house creative excellence. These prestigious awards include advertising and campaigns for clients – including the ideas that never made it into print! – plus advertising to promote the sale of newspapers and the power of advertising. The Awards continue to be updated to feature digital advertising solutions, including smartphones and iPads and other tablet computers. This year the Awards also recognise outstanding craft, be it copywriting, photography or illustration.

The Awards also embrace executive excellence, offering personal awards for ad manager of the year, display executive, online executive, best bundling solution, classifieds executive and Creative Services Professional.

In 2010, newspapers lodged a total 318 entries – a record high for the biggest in-house newspaper advertising Awards in our region.

Click here to read the Awards criteria for 2012.

Click here to download an entry form for the Executive Excellence Awards.

To enter the Awards, go to www.eawards.com.au/2012adawards.

Entries open: Monday, February 6

Entries close: Friday, March 30

Fee: A$125 per entry

Winners announced: Thursday, May 10

All entries must have been published between March 12, 2011 and March 30, 2012. Only financial members may enter.

Check out winners of the PANPA Ad Awards 2011 in the July 2011 PANPA Bulletin.

The team from the Border Mail collect their 2011 award . . . (left to right) sales manager Craig Cleary; PANPA CEO Mark Hollands; graphic artist Leysa Charles; advertising manager Nick Russell; head of creative Carl Rainer

Down and dirty. . .participants in Singapore Press Holdings’ annual Urbanathlon tough it out

FOURTEEN kilometres of unforgiving obstacles greeted the competitors of Singapore Press Holdings Magazines’ annual Urbanathlon race.

This year’s edition, designed to be “significantly tougher than 2011”, pushed more than 2,300 runners to the limit, through challenging obstacles across the city.

This is the third year the event has been held.

Some of the toughest obstacles included the ‘Corporate Ladder’, where runners had to climb and descend the viewing gallery of The Float@Marina Bay; ‘Monkey Business’, where participants were required to swing across four sets of monkey bars placed side by side; and ‘Down And Dirty’, the final obstacle which consisted of two skip tanks – one filled with mud, and the other with water.

Noteworthy participants included a number of parathletes such as Adam Kamis, the ‘One Arm Runner’ and Shariff Abdullah, the ‘Singapore Blade Runner’.

The overall winner was Thomas Kiprotich, who completed the course in 50 minutes and 51 seconds. The 24 year-old Kenyan took home S$10,000 in prizes.

Singapore Press Holding’s Chinese-language daily Lianhe Zaobao, alongside Scorpio East and Asia Arts & Culture, will present the acrobatic drama Journey to the West in April.

The production combines dance, martial arts and puppetry to tell the story of a Chinese monk who travels to India in search of Buddhist sutras.

It is performed by the Guangzhou Acrobatic Troupe of China.

“The show is not just quality family entertainment,” SPH Chinese Newspapers Division’s vice president of cultural industry promotion Lim Huan Chiang said.

“It is also good education material for teachers to cultivate the interest of Chinese culture among the young.”

It has gone into partnership with Sky News to launch the TV show Australian Business, which will appear at three Sunday timeslots.

Sky News chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos claimed that both his pay-TV channel and The Australian “have already changed the face of Sunday morning politics on television . . . now we’re doing the same with business”.

Leading finance journalists and commentators will be joined by business leaders to dissect the critical issues for corporate Australia and the economy.

The first show featured Philip Chronican, head of the ANZ Bank, which led a charge to hike interest rates for mortgage holders in Australia.

Sky presenter Kylie Merritt also joined The Australian’s Adam Creighton and Glenda Korporaal in discussion with investment banking stalwart, Mark Carnegie, on the global market turmoil and why he’s turning his own investment strategy on its head.