Johnston Press records £143.8m loss
JOHNSTON Press – the owner of Lancashire newspaper titles including the Lancashire Evening Post and the Lancaster Guardian – has seen advertising revenues fall by more than 10% since the turn of the year after recording a pre-tax loss of £143.8m for 2011.
The loss included an impairment charge on its publishing titles of £163.7m. On underlying performance, Johnston saw pre-tax profits fall 6.9% to £28.4m as revenues declined 6.1% to £373.8m.
Johnston was forced to delay the announcement of its results for 2011 as it held discussions with its lenders and this morning it announced it had agreed a new £393m facility until the end of September 2015.
Advertising revenues were down 9% last year and the company said the trend had continued in the first 15 weeks of 2012 with revenues down 10.6% on the same period.
New chief executive Ashley Highfield recently unveiled a major overhaul of the business that will see titles such as the Scarborough Evening News become a weekly newspaper, while a series of high-profile editorial roles have also been phased out. In Lancashire, editor’s posts for the Lancashire Evening Post (LEP) and Chorley Guardian were merged, while deputy editor posts at the LEP, Wigan Evening Post and the Blackpool Gazette have been phased out.
Mr Highfield said: “Although the prospects for the economy remain downbeat in the short term, I believe we can return Johnston Press to being a growth business through the twin track approach of re-launching and revitalising our papers while simultaneously growing our websites, and taking full advantage of the opportunities created by technology and the changing media demands of our users to deliver innovative propositions.”
Digital revenues grew by 0.7% to £18.4m but print advertising fell by 9.7% to £212.9m.
However, the company successfully removed £24.5m of costs from the business, including reducing staff numbers by more than 11%.
