Trinity benefits from digital lift

TRINITY Mirror, the publisher of the Manchester Evening News and the Liverpool Echo, saw a 4% fall in revenue in January although the operation was boosted due to a 32% year-on-year rise in digital revenue.

The company said the performance was in line with management expectations but it was not changing its full year forecasts.

“Whilst we expect continued month-on-month volatility, at this early stage in the year we anticipate an improvement in trends as we progress through 2014,” it said.

“Although newsprint prices have increased for the first half of 2014, in addition to an increase in the second half of 2013, we expect further structural cost savings of £10m and ongoing cost mitigation actions to ensure that the group has adequate headroom for investment whilst supporting profits and cash flows.”

The announcement is the first since the company axed the Liverpool Post and its business bulletin for tablet computers.

Group revenue in November and December was down 1% year on year with growth of 2% in December, which it said was a significant improvement on the performance for the first 10 months of 2013 when revenue fell by 7%.

The digital revenue growth, coupled with growth in printing and other revenue substantially offset a marginal decline in circulation revenues and a much improved 3% decline in print advertising.

It said the “better than anticipated” revenue performance in the last two months of 2013 provided confidence that adjusted operating profit for 2013 would be ahead of market expectations by around 4%.