STV has unveiled a profit of £9m for 2009 and revealed that it aims to make much of its content freely available through mobile media as part of its digital strategy.

STV has announced an operating profit for last year of £9.2m in its preliminary results for 2009.

The broadcaster said that the results had met the expectations of the board ‘despite the incredibly difficult market conditions’ with an overall turnover of £90m, down from £111m in 2008.

It’s programme strategy, which has been heavily criticised for dropping ITV content such as The Bill, Miss Marple and Midsomer Murders for own produced programming, made the company a profit of £6m and 169 new advertisers broadcast on the channel over the 12 months.

The company has also said that trading is ahead of forecasts, with national airtime up 13% in Q1 of this year.

Richard Findlay, chairman of STV Group, commented: “STV has delivered a strong set of results, particularly in light of the extremely challenging market conditions in 2009, including the demise of Setanta and the delay in ITV’s re-commission of Taggart. We have, however, concluded the successful turnaround of the business over the past three years, delivering on our promises and establishing STV as a focused and ambitious digital media company, structured to deliver shareholder value as the trading environment improves.”

Rob Woodward, chief executive officer, added: “STV is a vibrant, innovative and dynamic company with a clear strategy and a dedicated staff. The media industry has been particularly impacted by the unprecedented economic climate through 2009 and whilst we are seeing early signs of success, we have transformed our business to ensure that STV remains strong and competitive going forward. We are confident that as we go into 2010, against a backdrop of improved trading conditions, STV will continue to deliver against its ambitions.”

Meanwhile, the broadcaster is set to deliver bespoke applications across mobile phones, netbooks, media centre devices and set-top boxes through out 2010 which will allow users to view STV News, its catch-up service STV Player and STV local which selects news and information specific to the user’s location.

The first application will be STV News which will be submitted to the iPhone app Store in early March containing news and entertainment in video.

This will be followed by STV Player and STV local which will make over 200 local sites available to any device with a web browser by the end of March.

Alistair Brown, head of digital at STV, said: "STV has a wealth of content available and we’re striving to make this as readily and widely available as possible, across multi-platforms. We recognise that users don't want to be chained to a PC or laptop any more so we want STV audiences to access and consume our content where, when and how they want it."

He continued: “This strategy will expose potential audiences to the diverse range of content we already produce, but also broadens the base for user-generated features, localisation and community engagement - for example news articles, pictures, comment, ratings and recommendations."