DMGT benefits from retail price wars

MEDIA group Daily Mail & General Trust yesterday said supermarket price wars had helped fuel a "marked improvement" in advertising in its national newspaper division in January from an 8 per cent fall in group revenues in the quarter to December.

The group, whose papers include the Daily Mail, also said profit margins had improved in both its consumer and business-to-business operations.

Chief executive Martin Morgan said: "Trading in the first quarter has been ahead of our expectations and the new calendar year has started well, but we remain cautious about the outlook for the rest of the year, particularly in the UK."

DMGT has in the past year sold the London Evening Standard to Russian oligarch and former spy Alexander Lebedev, and closed the free London Lite newspaper and the Teletext TV service.

Revenues for the group's fiscal first quarter to end-December were 482 million, with consumer revenue down 9 per cent and business-to-business revenue 7 per cent lower.

The firm said national advertising sales fell 11 per cent in the December quarter, before January's recovery. Regional newspaper advertising sales fell 13 per cent in the quarter.