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Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Ireland's biggest publisher has finally stopped getting smaller

Independent News and Media has turned around its revenue after eight years.

Updated 15.51

AFTER YEARS OF watching its newspapers’ sales and revenues decline, Ireland’s largest publisher is growing again.

Independent News and Media (INM) this morning reported its first increase in revenue for eight years, with higher digital ad sales making up for lower newspaper and print advertising income.

During the 10 months to the end of October, INM said its total revenue was up over 1%. The company’s digital ads brought in 43% more than for the same period in 2014, offsetting the slide in its print business.

It reported an unspecified level of growth in its pre-tax profits amid “tight control over operating costs” and the recently announced shutdown of its GrabOne voucher business.

In August INM revealed it was shutting down its Belfast printing operations with the potential loss of 89 jobs. The company spent a total of €9.3 million on redundancies in 2014.

Its flagship mastheads, the Irish Independent and Sunday Independent, have been dropping in circulation at slower rates than their rivals over the past year, but sales of the Sunday World have been in freefall.

The company said several advertising segments had shown improved results over the past year, including property and magazines.

In a briefing note, Davy analyst Robert Stokes said INM’s decision earlier this year to strike a long-term commercial deal with the Irish Times had “clearly been a positive” for the publisher.

That agreement involved the Times printing INM-affiliated tabloids the Sunday World and Irish Daily Star, while INM handled distribution of the national broadsheet through its Newspread operation.

First published 10.42am

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43 Comments
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    Mute Michael Kavanagh
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 9:27 AM

    Excellent thoughtful article as usual.
    I doubt if anyone under 45/50 can appreciate the very basic culinary offerings in the Iteland of not so long ago.
    Resistance to any food seen as ‘foreign’ was ingrained in many – a lot of early package holidaymakers brought tinned beans and peas to spare them having to eat anything local.
    My late father first ate Chinese food at the age of 64 in 1988 – loved it but still referred to it as ‘foreign muck’!

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    Mute Thenaked Goose
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 11:30 AM

    @Michael Kavanagh: Jimmy Rafferty did a poem at Bard of Armagh some years back called ‘foreign feedin’- so much rang true – worth a view https://youtu.be/nAJyljj2q6k

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    Mute DK
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 1:25 PM

    @Michael Kavanagh: Where are you going with your foreign holiday? It was down to Kerry for the week! I’m a lot younger than 45 too.

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    Mute Lesidees
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 10:05 AM

    There is surely an article to be written on how and why Italian immigrants to Ireland ran chippers instead of trattorias and pizzerias

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    Mute Deborah Blacoe
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 10:14 AM

    @Lesidees: the Journal.ie did an article back in 2016 about Italian chippers and in it there is a link to a YouTube video on the history of how the Italians ended up doing that.

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    Mute Deborah Blacoe
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 10:09 AM

    There’s a lot of ‘Irish’ food from my childhood which I will never revisit – tripe and onions, coddle, boiled bacon ribs and ‘egg-flip’. I actually didn’t mind the taste of tripe, it was only when I realised what it was, that my own stomach absolutely refused to have anything to do with it again. Coddle and boiled ribs – it was the smell of them cooking and the pale ‘uncooked’ look of them which always got to me. And the morning egg flip – raw egg beaten and drunk from a glass – ugh! Having said that, there is a great comfort from the plain meat, potatoes and vegetables which were the staples of childhood meals as I grew up. And in general, those staples are still reared and grown still in Ireland. Always good to support our own farmers.

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    Mute JGD
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 10:25 AM

    @Deborah Blacoe: I had coddle for the first time a few years ago in the Gravediggers, Glasnevin, and it was amazing. One of the few meals that stayed in my memory.

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    Mute Dermot Byrne
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 10:29 AM

    @Deborah Blacoe: you can’t beat a good coddle on a cold crap day

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    Mute Deborah Blacoe
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 10:31 AM

    @JGD: That’s brilliant. It’s always good when food has that impact.It’s just at this stage is a mental block with me! Can’t go near it.

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    Mute Deborah Blacoe
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 10:32 AM

    @Dermot Byrne: absolutely if that’s your fancy! For me, it would be a beef stew.

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    Mute Tony Groome
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 7:36 PM

    @Deborah Blacoe: Coddle is food of the gods!

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    Mute Sequoia
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 10:52 AM

    I can recall my dad bringing us for a fancy “American Pizza” in the first Pizza Hut in Ireland in Phibsboro shopping centre (last unit on the right when facing it). It would have been about 1978/9.

    McDonald’s only had Grafton St & O’Connell St. at the time. Pickings were slim for “exotic” American eateries.

    Being a kid, I had the ham & pineapple – no tomato sauce

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    Mute Aido
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 3:00 PM

    @Sequoia: Pineapple? You need help

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    Mute Luke Lee
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 8:40 AM

    What’s the Irish for ‘I had a spice bag last night and now my arse is burning’?

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    Mute John kane
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 9:00 AM

    @Luke Lee: bhí spice bag agam areir, anois, tá mo hóin ar tine

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    Mute Joe Brennan
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 9:00 AM

    @Luke Lee: Bhí mála spice agam aréir agus tá mo thóin ag dhó

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    Mute Niall Bourke
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 9:02 AM

    @Luke Lee: Bhí mála spíosraí agam aréir agus anois tá mo poll trí thine.

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    Mute Paraic
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 9:05 AM

    @Luke Lee: D’ith mé mála spice aréir agus tá ring sting agam inniu.

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    Mute Cormac Laffan
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 9:40 AM

    @Luke Lee: Jaysus, me ring’s on fire!!

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    Mute John Considine
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 10:20 AM

    @Luke Lee: níl aon tón tinn mar do thón tinn féin.

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    Mute Des Groome
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 1:50 PM

    I had my first Pizza in the bad ass cafe in 1984 when I was 14 :-) so cosmopolitan :-)

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    Mute Deborah Blacoe
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    Feb 23rd 2020, 2:34 PM

    @Des Groome: So bad ass!

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