Richard Desmond’s media empire Northern & Shell has hailed the “remarkable turnaround” of Channel 5 as it prepares to report a return to profit for the terrestrial broadcaster.

In the first real insight into C5’s performance since Desmond took over in July last year, Northern & Shell’s accounts this week will show that the broadcaster returned to profit from September.

In doing so, it is understood C5 contributed more than £10m to the group’s overall pre-tax profits of £30.3m for the 12 months to the end of December. This was more than triple 2009’s profits of £8.9m.

C5’s performance also helped Northern & Shell’s revenue grow from £421.5m in 2009 to £524.8m last year.

The turnaround has not been without pain, however.

After Northern & Shell purchased C5 from RTL for £99.1m last summer, Desmond made a swathe of top level redundancies and closed the broadcaster’s Long Acre office at a cost of £11m. The value of C5’s tape stock was also written down by £12.1m.

“The Channel 5 business - purchased in July 2010 - was successfully re-structured at a cost of £11m in the year. These changes enabled the broadcaster to trade with underlying operating profits from September 2010,” Northern & Shell said in a statement.

The company, which also owns newspapers The Express and the Daily Star, will file its full accounts at Companies House later this week.

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