Agora expects 10% increase in group profits in 2003

Top media group Agora expects its 2003 group revenues to rise more than 10% despite continuing weakness on the once blooming advertising market, the company's CEO, Wanda Rapaczynski said yesterday. Agora's consolidated revenues totalled zl. 785 million last year. Without its newly added units (local radio stations and advertising group AMS) the figure was zl. 683.5 million, compared with zl. 777 million in 2001. "In 2003, we see the advertising market slipping some 0.5% in nominal terms, with the daily press market down around 5.5%," Agora's chief executive Rapaczynski told reporters. "The ad revenues of Gazeta Wyborcza may fall some 2%-3% ...but the group's revenues should rise more than 10%," she said. According to Agora's estimates, the domestic advertising market, valued at around zl. 4.4 billion, shrank some 11% in 2002 as the economic slowdown continued to squeeze companies' budgets. (Reuters) A.K.