German media giant Bertelsmann reported a small dip in 2011 operating profits on Thursday, as losses from new business ventures and printing outweighed solid advertising and e-book sales.

Operating earnings before interest and tax amounted to 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion) last year, compared with 1.8 billion euros the year before, the firm said in a statement.

"A good performance of the advertising-driven businesses and rapidly growing e-book sales were offset by planned start-up losses for new growth platforms and the weak business performance of some of the printing operations," it said.

Losses in Bertelsmann's direct marketing operations also affected the firm's bottom line.

Overall sales however rose slightly to 15.3 billion euros, from 15.1 billion euros in the pervious year.

Bertelsmann's activities cover television (RTL Group), book publishing (Random House), magazine publishing (Gruner + Jahr), and outsourcing services (Arvato).