Media group Fairfax has suffered an 86 per cent slide in its first half profit to $26.3 million due to one-off impairment charges and redundancy costs.

Excluding the one-offs, the media group’s profit was down 0.6 per cent to $86.4 million, while underlying earnings fell 8.7 per cent to $162.4 million.

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Earnings from the company’s metropolitan media division rose four per cent, as an increase in digital subscriptions and the growth of its Domain real estate advertising business offset a further decline in print advertising.

Fairfax also announced it would buy-back up to 121 million of its shares over the next 12 months and said it would pay shareholders an interim dividend of two cents per share.