Trinity Mirror reports loss of £73m as revenues plunge

by Jacquie Bowser, Brand Republic 26-Feb-09, 09:00

LONDON - Trinity Mirror, publisher of the Daily Mirror, has reported a pre-tax loss of £73.5m as revenues plunged by £100m over the past 12 months while ad revenues declined and continue to do so, falling 30% in the first two months of 2009.

Revenue fell from £971.3m in 2007 to £871.7m as the publisher reported a pre-tax loss of £73.5m for the year to December 28, down from a pre-tax profit of £21m in 2007.

These results include non-recurring charges of £226.3m, including £190m impairment of the carrying value of Trinity's publishing rights and titles for its regional newspapers in the Midlands and the South.

With the company also scrapping its final dividend, its share price was driven down 5.59% to 38.5p in early trading.

Trinity also released a set of adjusted earnings, which revealed a pre-tax profit of £124.2m during the year, down from £191m in 2007.

Trinity's regionals division, including the Birmingham Post, the Western Mail and the Liverpool Echo, reported an 11% year on year decline in adjusted revenue to £396m in 2008.

The national division's adjusted revenue dropped 2.4% year on year to £475.7m.

Trinity's digital revenues from retained businesses grew by 27.1% to £43.6m. Digital revenues now represent 5% of the group's total revenues, up from 3.7% in 2007.

Sly Bailey, chief executive of Trinity Mirror, said: "Trinity Mirror has performed creditably in very difficult trading conditions. While advertising revenues were under extreme pressure we delivered full-year results ahead of market forecasts.

"With our proven track record of delivering substantial cost savings and driving efficiencies in our businesses, we remain well positioned to manage our way through these uncertain times for the UK economy."

Trinity said that its ad revenues in the first two months of this year had fallen by around 30% year on year and it expects that they will continue to decline throughout 2009.

The results follow Trinity's announcement earlier this week that it is to create a single multimedia-based editorial operation across both the Daily Record and Sunday Mail and the division's associated websites and titles including the Glaswegian and Business 7.

Up to 70 jobs at the Daily Record and Sunday Mail will be axed in the restructure.

The Daily Record's circulation has fallen to less than 340,000 and is no longer Scotland's biggest paper, having been overtaken by the Scottish Sun. The Sunday Mail sells around 416,000 and remains the region's most popular Sunday newspaper.

The redundancies at the Record and Mail follow restructuring and job losses at The Herald and Sunday Herald.