Newsquest (Herald & Times), the Scottish arm of US media giant Gannett and the owner of The Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times newspapers, has unveiled pre-tax profits of £23.8m, roughly in line with the previous year.

The profit figure, which pertains to the 52 weeks to December 30, 2007, compares with £24.1m during the 53 weeks to the end of December the year before.

Turnover declined slightly to £86.8m, against £88.3m last time.

Tim Blott, Herald & Times managing director, said in a statement: "I am very grateful to all our staff for their hard work during a challenging year. The growth during 2007 of our internet business, s1, is highly encouraging but did not fully compensate for the slowdown in newspaper revenues. Our printing and magazine divisions also performed well in a deteriorating market.

"Looking ahead, our continuing efforts to build audience and improve efficiency will become even more crucial during the current economic downturn."

In July, Newsquest UK - which owns 17 daily titles and almost 300 weekly newspapers throughout the country - unveiled pre-tax profits of £89m for the 2007 calendar year, compared with £101.9m the year before.

Broken down, Gannett's three Scottish titles accounted for 26.7% of its entire UK profits last year.

Gannett also owns USA Today, as well as 23 American televison stations and almost 1000 daily and weekly publications in the US.