Advertising loss hits JP
JOHNSTON Press – the owner of Yorkshire newspaper titles including the Yorkshire Post and The Star in Sheffield – has seen advertising revenues fall by more than 10% this 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 in Leeds the editorships of the Yorkshire Evening Post and Yorkshire Post will become a single role.
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%.
