Media group UTV has announced pre-tax profits of just £1m for the six month period to June - that's down from £10m last year.

That’s down from a profit of £10m in the same period last year, principally due to heavy losses at UTV Ireland, the television station that launched here in the Republic in January, and to lower advertising revenues generally on both sides of the border.

Operating losses at UTV Ireland during the first half amounted to £7.5m on the back of costs of £12.4m and a poorer than anticipated 11.4% share of commercial advertising share here during the period.

The company says that it’s board has approved a programming and marketing action plan for UTV Ireland but there is no update on the forecast full year losses of some €11.5m.

There is no update in the statement either about UTV’s confirmation earlier in the week that it’s in discussions with ITV in the UK about the sale of all its tv operations, which appears to include UTV Ireland.

Turnover at UTV’s TV station in the North were also affected by an 11% fall in advertising revenues, principally due to a significant cut in expenditure by government departments in the Northern Ireland Assembly.