Operating and Financial Review - Divisional Performance |
PR Newswire
Operating and Financial Review
Divisional Performance continued
PR Newswire
PR Newswire is the world’s leading commercial news and information distribution service. Headquartered in New York, PR Newswire provides news distribution, targeting, measurement and broadcast services on behalf of tens of thousands of customers, including many of the world’s top companies, organisations and agencies. PR Newswire routinely sends its customers’ news to outlets in 135 countries and in more than 40 languages.
Websites
Number of people
770
Headquarters
New York USA
Major products
US1 Premium Newsline
ProfNet ExpertsSM
eWatch™
MEDIAtlas™
Search Engine Optimization
MediaRoom
MediaSense™
MultiVu™
U.S. Newswire
Locations
Bureaux in 11 countries around the world
Americas
Bureaux in 4 countries
Europe
Bureaux in 4 countries
Asia Pacific
Bureaux in 3 countries
Divisional results
PR Newswire delivered an excellent performance in all areas of operation. Underlying revenue and operating profit were up 6.8% and 33.8% respectively, with the overall operating margin up from 28% to 32.3%. PR Newswire’s strong performance is driven by increased international traffic, increased demand from US customers for PR Newswire’s premium US1 news distribution service and growth in its added value services – MultiVu, eWatch and MediaRoom and cost reductions. The European operating margin was 33.5%. The Rest of the World grew operating profit to £3m (£1.9m profit in 2005).
Achievements in delivering UBM strategy
PR Newswire is growing strongly as a result of a strategy which has seen a focus on high-value product sales, investment in new product development, expansion into new markets, tight cost management and acquisitions to strengthen our position in key segments.
In 2006 PR Newswire delivered strong results by improving its service to customers, investing in new products while anticipating and responding to market shifts such as changes in regulatory environments, changing investor and public relations practice, as well as adapting to the growing role of social media in news distribution.
PR Newswire enhanced its premier distribution product US1, giving customers an incentive for customers to ‘trade up’ to the premium product. The Media Monitoring service now monitors 10,000 online news sites and blogs, allowing users to track online usage of their press releases. Separately, US1’s Search Engine Optimization service added a mobile optimisation capability, meeting the formatting and technical requirements specific to mobile devices.
PR Newswire re-positioned MultiVu, its fast growing multi- media content production business, under the ‘Broadcast and Beyond’ banner, allowing it to distribute clients’ content through targeted web channels as well as through traditional broadcast and cable outlets. From having no revenues this web distribution grew to account for over 70% of revenues by December. MultiVu also forged a deal with Blinx.tv (the world’s largest pure video search engine) to make available the complete library of client video to Blinx users.
PR Newswire supplemented its premium international press release distribution through news agencies in 135 countries and 30 languages by distributing directly to online news channels or international eChannels. Message volume and yield increased over both sets of distribution channels.
In partnership with the social bookmarking site Del.icio.us, PR Newswire was the first press release distributor to give consumers access to news releases and tag them on the popular site, now owned by Yahoo!.