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| - Media firm Prisa, which owns Spain's El Pais newspaper, said Wednesday it returned to profit last year thanks to the sale of the Spanish branch of its education editorial group. The company, which also owns Cadena Ser radio station and Cinco Dias financial newspaper, posted a net profit of 90 million euros ($109 million) in 2020, its first since 2015. It had posted a net loss of 183 million euros in 2019. Like other media firms, Prisa is suffering from dwindling spending on traditional media advertising, which has been aggravated by the economic crisis that was sparked by the coronavirus pandemic. The debt-laden company said total revenues fell by 27 percent in 2020 from the previous year to 701 million euros. But this was made up for by the sale in October of the Spanish division of its editorial group Santillana to Finnish group Sanoma Corporation for 465 million euros. Prisa said it had booked a capital gain of 377 million euros from the operation. El Pais, one of the biggest Spanish-language publications in the world and an institution both in Spain and in Latin America, began charging for some articles online last year to offset a decline in advertising and circulation. The metered paywall, launched on May 1, allows visitors to read 10 free articles per month before requiring them to subscribe to access all El Pais content. emi/ds/hmw/wai
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