Centrica’s latest operating profits were splashed across the early morning news here in the UK. Both the BBC and Sky News gleefully told viewers that despite British Gas’ loss of one million customers, Centrica’s profits still managed to come in at £1.44bn.

The BBC News website retargets this figure towards a £5m rise in British Gas’ profits to £95m.

The world is correspondingly aghast at how a company performing so badly can continue to make so much money. It’s not fair.

Until you analyse a little more: hidden in the aforementioned BBC article is “Centrica’s full-year results were affected by exceptional financial costs”. So what are these costs, and what are the comprehensive full-year results? You won’t find out at the BBC. Or Sky News.

Time to skip over to msn Money, and the AP Business News. Centrica posted a full year loss of £156m on revenue of £16.45bn, which reflects how insignificant British Gas is.

If you really want to find out how this all works out, you need to read the report from Centrica (PDF). Page 17 should do it.