Fairfax Media has reported a 44% decrease in net profit after tax in its half-year report.

The challenging result will stoke fears that the company will again plunder the balance sheet of recently floated Trade Me, in which it retains a 66% stake.

The Australian media company’s net profit after tax fell 44% from $A172.9 million for the six months ending December 26 2010 to $A97.6 million for the six months ending December 25 2011.

Total revenue for the half year was $A1.2 billion, a 7.7% decrease on the equivalent 2010 period when total revenue was $A1.3 billion.

Operating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was down 28.2% from $A387.0 million to $A248.8 million.

Advertising revenue fel consistently from the third quarter of the 2011 financial year to the second quarter of the 2012 financial year.

Printing operations revenue was down 10.5% to $A253.5 million and EBITDA was down 19.9% to $A45.4 million.

Trade me performed well with a 12.7% increase in revenue to $67.3 million and EBITDA was up 9% to $52 million (read NBR's full Trade Me earnings report here).

New Zealand revenue, profit fall
Fairfax’s New Zealand media division with 104 newspaper and magazines and 19 websites had a total gross revenue decrease of 8% from $246.4 million to $226.7 million.

EBITDA for the NZ media fell 21.5% from $52.1 million to $40.9 million.