Fairfax Media has made a nearly $1 billion loss for the 2016 financial year because of more write-downs and redundancies.

The media company, which owns mastheads including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, made an $893.5 million loss for financial year 2016.

The loss was mainly due to net charges of $1.02 billion for write-downs including plant and equipment, which also includes nearly $63 million in redundancy costs for the year.

Revenue fell 2 per cent to $1.8 billion.

Fairfax made an $87 million profit in 2015.

Domain brings home the profits

Revenue at real estate arm Domain Group increased by one third to $296 million.

Before tax earnings rose by 40 per cent at Domain, boosted by online.

Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood said Domain performed strongly, despite the uncertainty caused by the two-month long federal election campaign.

"Domain delivered strong double-digit growth in the second half, despite the dampening effect on June of the longest federal election in modern history," he said.

Domain continued to deliver gains to market share.

But Mr Hywood said revenue at Metro Media, which includes The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, dropped.

"Metro experienced a 5 per cent decline in revenue and 45 per cent decline in EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation], reflecting ongoing structural shifts in advertising spend and investment in growth areas, digital ventures and events," he added.

Metropolitan publishing advertising revenue in Australia dropped 15 per cent.

Fairfax said digital subscriptions increased 17 per cent which "largely offset" declines in revenue from print circulation.

At the end of June 2016, there were 209,000 paid digital subscribers for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Financial Review.

Fairfax fingers digital for growth

Mr Hywood said earnings from digital were driving growth.

"Non-print earnings, made up largely of digital earnings, now constitute more than 40 per cent of this company's EBITDA," Mr Hywood told an analyst briefing.

On current trends next year this will be closer to 60 per cent reflecting the continued growth in digital earnings.

He said Fairfax and Nine's jointly-owned on-demand TV business, STAN, reached more than 500,000 active subscribers.

Revenue declined 10 per cent at Community Media, which includes local papers and the company's New Zealand media arm, the owner of the New Zealand Herald.

Investors will get a final dividend payout of 2 cents per share, partially franked, bringing the full-year dividend to 4 cents a share, partially franked.

Fairfax has net debt of $88.7 million.

At 10:30am (AEST) Fairfax shares were down more than 6 per cent to $0.93.

They fell as much as 9 per cent in early trade.