Post & Mail publisher looks to digital growth to claw back lost revenue

BIRMINGHAM Post & Mail publisher Trinity Mirror has said it will continue its focus on developing its digital offering as it looks to claw back lost revenue.

Interim results by the publishing group show first half revenue declined by almost £30m to £332m compared with last year, although pre-tax profits held up at £49.3m (2012: £48.1m).

The group said trading for the first six months had been slow with year on year revenue declines of 12.6% in January and February. However, it said it was encouraged by the improved year on year trends in March to June although revenue still declined 6.6%.

In July, revenues fell by 6.5% with circulation revenues down by 2.3%, advertising revenues down by 11.7% and other revenues down by 10.6% with printing revenue broadly flat.

Chief executive Simon Cox said there would be a “relentless” focus on efficiency and cost management. The strategy saw operating costs fall year on year by £28.5m in the first half and the group remains on target to deliver at least £10m of structural cost savings in 2013.

Fox said: “We expect the trading environment to remain difficult for the remainder of the year with continued month on month volatility. Although newsprint prices have increased for the second half, the benefit of at least £10m of structural cost savings and the ongoing cost mitigation actions will ensure the group has adequate headroom for investment whilst supporting profits.

“The benefits of the strategic initiatives and ongoing cost mitigating actions across the group provide the board with confidence for the group’s performance for 2013.”

Fox said there had been a number of investments and initiatives during the first half to revitalise core brands. These have included hybrid editions of a number of regional titles with the paid for circulation being supplemented by free copies to grow reach.

He said that building on the success of the hybrid edition of the Manchester Evening News, the group had launched hybrid editions of the Birmingham Mail, The Western Mail in Swansea and the Reading Post.

Since launching the Daily Mirror and Daily Record Apple e-editions in 2012 it said it had had over 150,000 and 20,000 app downloads respectively. In the first half, it launched Apple e-editions for the Irish Mirror, the Birmingham Mail, the Coventry Telegraph, the Evening Chronicle (Newcastle), the Evening Gazette (Teesside) and business e-editions for the Birmingham Post and the Liverpool Post. Further Apple e-editions are planned for the remaining key regional titles. The Android e-edition of the Daily Mirror launched in July and the Daily Record is launching in the coming weeks with the key regional titles following.

“We are also strengthening our product development capabilities and have invested in additional resource across sales, product development and editorial. We have announced plans to double the size of the Mirror.co.uk digital editorial team, following full integration of the seven-day print and digital teams earlier in the year. Based in London and Manchester, the 25 additional staff will enable us to significantly increase our online content and build on recent strong web success,” added Fox.

“We have seen good growth in unique users and page views for all re-launched sites with particularly strong growth on mobile as the new platform ensures that all sites are mobile enabled. We are also beginning to see good traction on digital display advertising for all our sites and we anticipate this to improve further as we progress through the year.”

It has also increased investment in Sport Media, its sports contract publishing business. In the first half, Sport Media secured new three-year publishing contracts for match day programmes and magazines with Premier League clubs: Tottenham Hotspur and West Bromwich Albion which alongside existing contracts with Arsenal, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Everton brings the total to six. Sport Media also secured the print and digital publishing rights for the 2015 Rugby World Cup, being hosted in the UK.