A company with more than 100 titles has announced record profits and predicted that newspapers will continue to flourish.

Tindle Newspapers’ annual meeting was told that the past year had been “hugely successful”, with profit before tax and radio company costs soaring by 44% to £4,478,711.

Part of the increase was due to the purchase of further titles in Wales but the original papers showed a 21 per cent rise on their own, said chairman Sir Ray Tindle.

He said that a newspaper was not just another business but “a living thing”, important to its town, readers, advertisers and staff. If it was to ensure a long life, it must make a constantly increasing profit.

But Sir Ray said: “Well-run newspapers are profitable and do survive but they do not exist just to make a profit as is the case with most businesses.

“Newspaper exist because originally someone felt passionately that they were needed or, later on, someone felt passionately that they should survive the ‘dark days’ through which many newspapers passed during the century just ended.

“Local newspapers are needed today every bit as much as they were needed 100 years ago, and no other medium can do the job a local newspaper does in anything like the depth required. They will continue to survive and to flourish.”

Tindle’s total circulation rose to 691,000 last year, with operating profit up more than £4m compared with 20 years ago.

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