Although its last year's acquisitions of Rural Press and Southern Cross Broadcasting's radio network confused performance results comparisons, Fairfax Media is already reaping the benefits from the buys, The Age, owned by Fairfax, has reported Friday.

Fairfax is “humming along very well and personally I'm very happy about what is going on in this organisation,” said Ron Walker, the company's chairman.

Total revenue for Fairfax was up 39.5 percent, to AU$1.44 billion, while profit was up by about the same percentage, to $187.7 million. However, “on a like-for-like bases – which adjusts the results for an additional weekend in the period, and for if Rural Press had been incorporated for a whole year,” revenue increased by only 2.3 percent, and operational earnings rose 5.1 percent, The Age reported.

David Kirk, chief executive of Fairfax, told The Age that performance in print, online and radio divisions was “clearly a result of a sensible programme of growth and diversification.”

However, the company's two best performing divisions, Fairfax Digital in Australia and Trade Me in New Zealand, are online based.

Revenue for Fairfax Digital, which controls newspaper and classifieds Web sites for all of Fairfax's metro newspapers, was up by 39.5 percent, to $85.4 million, according to The Age.