For the year to 31 March group sales were down 2.5% at £257.8m “due to a challenging advertising market”.
Digital reader revenues rose by 7.7% to £88.2m.
Printed media reader revenues slipped by 2.6% to £66.9m.
However, advertising sales, encompassing online and print, fell 12.8% to £62.2m.
Other revenue, including events and content licensing, was down £2m at £40.5m.
The adjusted operating loss jumped from £18.8m to £35.9m, while the statutory operating loss was £43.5m, up from a £23.8m loss the prior year.
Guardian Media Group said the net operating cash outflow of £36.5m included investments in its US business, a new Guardian Europe edition, and the recently launch Feast cooking app.
The newspaper’s ownership structure exists “to secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of The Guardian, free from commercial or political interference”.
The average number of employees during the period increased by 48 to 1,684.
Alongside the results announcement, Guardian Media Group confirmed it was in “formal negotiations” with Tortoise Media over a potential sale of The Observer, which was founded in 1791 and lays claim to being the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper.
The Observer was acquired by GMG 21 years ago.
Tortoise Media was launched five years ago by former Times editor James Harding and Matthew Barzun a former US ambassador to the UK. It focuses on “slow journalism” supported by members.
Its undisclosed offer for the Observer includes a commitment to invest more than £25m over the next five years “in the editorial and commercial renewal of the title” – in print and digital.
The Guardian said it would remain a seven-day-a-week digital operation “regardless of the outcome of the negotiations”, with a print edition from Monday to Saturday.
The newspapers are printed by Reach.
The value of The Scott Trust’s investment funds increased by 2.8%, to £1.275bn.
The Guardian and The Observer do not report ABC audited circulation figures anymore. The Guardian claims a monthly print readership of 3.1m.
