Outlook improves at Johnston Press despite fall in profits

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 29-Aug-07, 11:00

LONDON - Johnston Press has said it is experiencing continued improvement in its ad revenues as it reported disappointing half-year pre-tax profits of £65.5m, down 15% year on year.

The newspaper publisher's overall revenues inched up 0.1% year on year to £312.8m.

On Johnston Press's own measure of quoting pre-tax profit before non-recurring items, its profit figure fell 6.9% to £76.3m, marginally ahead of City expectations.

The company is a major force in regional newspapers and owns flagship titles such as The Scotsman and The Yorkshire Post. Despite the fall in newspaper circulations, its newspaper sales revenues grew 0.5% because of the offsetting impact of selective cover price increases.

The rate of decline in print advertising revenues slowed substantially from 9.2% to 2.9%, and overall advertising revenues fell 1.5%.

Digital revenues grew 33.5%, with unique users up 31% to 7.9m a month and page impressions up 40% to 76.2m a month.

Tim Bowdler, chief executive, said: "The month of July has seen a continuation of the improving month-on-month advertising trends in the UK.

"Costs remain under good control and new publishing initiatives, especially in the digital arena, continue to produce strong growth, albeit from a small base."

The group's comparatively high operating profit margin fell from 32.6% to 30.9%.