French TV listings war hits Emap

THE recent war between French television listings magazines is set to slow British publisher Emap's growth it warned today.

Its market-leading weeklies, Tele Star with a circulation of 1.9m and Tele Poche with 1.1m, have been hit by the launch of three new fortnightly listings magazines. The first of these, Tele de Semaine, launched by Bertelsmann's French subsidiary Prisma at a cost of some e20m (£13.4m), has already built up a circulation of 1.5m. It retails at e1 against the 95 cents charged for weeklies.

Emap's two titles have seen their circulations fall by 15% to 20% but chief executive Tom Moloney is in no rush to follow suit: 'We know that this is not a profitable model at these cover prices. We will respond but we are not sure we want to launch a fortnightly.'

France will also be hit by the recent weakness of the euro and a shake-up caused by new legislation allowing consumer magazines to advertise on television.

Emap shares dropped 78p, to 768p as analysts cut their current-year forecasts by around 5%.

Moloney said: 'We have had three good years of good growth and the current one will one of solid growth.'

Pre-tax profits rose by 12% to £196m on revenues up by 9% at £1.1bn in the year to end-March. The dividend rises 9% to 23.5p on earnings up by 14% at 55.8p a share.