Fairfax has posted a $2.7 billion loss due to nearly $3 billion worth of write-downs and restructuring costs.

That result is seven times worse than last year's loss of $390 million.

The biggest write-downs were a reduction in the value of the company's mastheads and trade names from $3.25 billion to $1.29 billion - effectively slashing the valuation placed on names such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review.

"The assessment of the carrying value of our intangible assets - mastheads, goodwill and customer relationships - is based on the three-year outlook for each of our business units," said Fairfax's chief executive Greg Hywood.

"That outlook worsened considerably over the course of the second half of the year as the cyclical downturn became more pronounced, and our confidence in a sustained improvement in market conditions reduced."

The company also reported a 6 per cent fall in revenue to $2.3 billion.

Greg Hywood says that is due to the worst advertising market in around three decades.

"I have been in this industry since the late-1970s, and I have never seen an advertising environment of the type that we are currently experiencing," he observed.

"I also know that cycles come and cycles go, and inevitably this will pass."

Fairfax's underlying profit, excluding one-off costs, and before tax, interest and depreciation was $506 million, down 17 per cent on last year.

However, the company says that is slightly above its forecasts in June and a little ahead of market expectations.

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The company's underlying profit after tax was down 26 per cent to $205 million.

Despite the falls in revenue and profit, and the massive write-downs, Greg Hywood painted an upbeat picture of the performance of its metropolitan mastheads.

"The analysis shows two things: first, notwithstanding the headwinds facing the print business it remains profitable; secondly, we have developed a market leading digital business which is growing rapidly and this year generated revenues that exceeded $250 million," he said in the report.

However, the company says its leading business masthead, The Australian Financial Review, underperformed in 2012 with a "difficult second half."

Fairfax's regional papers again provided one of the strongest results for the group, however their revenues also declined 2.4 per cent.

Fairfax reduced its debt by $574 million to $914 million due to the partial float of its Trade Me subsidiary.

The company will pay a final dividend of 1 cent a share, bringing the total for the year to 3 cents.

Fairfax shares were down 6.7 per cent to 52.7 cents by 11:47am (AEST).