THE chief executive of Chrysalis Group, owner of the Heart radio station, vowed yesterday to push into podcasting as he revealed a 10 per cent surge in advertising revenues over the past three months.

Richard Huntingford said that he had a team of employees investigating online opportunities in an effort to exploit Chrysalis’s key radio brands, which also include Galaxy and LBC.

The comments came as Chrysalis reported a sharp fall in interim profits to £1.4 million, from £4.3 million a year earlier, amid challenging times for the advertising market.

Despite the pick-up in advertising revenues over the March-to-May quarter, shares in the media group finished 2¾p down at 136¼p yesterday.

Chrysalis’s radio division outperformed the market, with radio revenues down 4.6 per cent on a like-for-like basis to £31.1 million, against an 8 per cent fall across the wider market. Chrysalis said that it had managed to secure higher advertising rates and a larger share of advertisers’ spending as a result of the review of its contracts with leading media buyers at the end of the year.

Mr Huntingford told The Times that Chrysalis was keen to exploit further its key radio brands through the launch of internet services, such as podcasting.

The group, which already offers a subscription podcasting service for LBC, priced at £2 a month, is planning further online services on its other radio websites.

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