Shares in Daily Mail and General Trust plc (LON:DMGT) raced up nearly 8% in early deals as revenues and profits for the full year beat City expectations, but the group still saw a 23% drop in profits at its newspaper arm.
Operating profit at DMG Media fell 23% to £77mln for the 12 months to end September compared to £96mln last year.
The division includes the free Metro paper, the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday.
The firm said the tough newspaper advertising market conditions it had experienced in the second half of 2015 had persisted, with print advertising revenues declining by 12%.
This was largely offset, however, by online advertising revenues, which were 17% higher at DMG Media.
Across the group as a whole, total combined advertising revenues declined by an underlying 4% to £326mln. Pre-tax profit was 7% lower at £260mln but revenues were up 4% to stand at £1.9bn.
Chief executive Paul Zwillenberg remained upbeat and said the results reflected "the ongoing resilience of the portfolio through varying market conditions".
"Revenues were supported by good organic growth in many of our B2B and consumer digital operations. This was balanced by challenging market conditions for print advertising, property information, energy and financial sectors," he added.
"The significant organic and M&A investments made across the group over the past few years have started to bear fruit. Alongside this we have been expanding MailOnline while our newspapers continue to outperform the market."
City broker Numis said: "DMGT has reported 2016 results that are ahead of our estimates at every level."
It repeats a 'buy' and targets 970p for the shares, which it says are very good value at current levels.
Shares gained 7.68% to stand at 823p on the day.