Johnston Press flags improvement amid tough market

Johnston Press chief Ashley Highfield said the group's growth efforts were 'starting to bear fruit'. Picture: Malcolm Irving

The owner of The Scotsman and i newspapers said adjusted revenues fell 6 per cent to £221.5 million in 2016, but the decline slowed to 5 per cent in the third quarter and sales were up 1 per cent in the final three months of the year.

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And chief executive Ashley Highfield said those improved trends have continued into 2017, with digital advertising revenues rising 2 per cent in the first quarter and print circulation of The Scotsman up 4.7 per cent year-on-year, helped by the title’s 200th anniversary celebrations.

Meanwhile, circulation for the i, acquired in a £24 million deal last year, rose 2.8 per cent, with overall circulation revenues for the group jumping 11.3 per cent to £79.7m.

Highfield said: “Despite an industry-wide backdrop of significant downward pressure on revenues, the actions we have taken to pilot the business through this rapidly-changing market and create the conditions from which to create growth are starting to bear fruit.

“Circulation figures of key titles are improving, the i has bucked the trend of declining national newspaper sales and our progressive editorial and sales models are starting to transform our regional businesses.”

Johnston Press, which also owns the Edinburgh Evening News, Scotland on Sunday, Yorkshire Post and scores of local newspapers and websites, added that its digital audience had grown by 9 per cent year-on-year to 24.6 million by the end of February, with further “substantial” growth on social media platforms.

Highfield added: “Amid ever-growing concerns from advertisers, both big and small, about the placement of their brand alongside unacceptable content, and increasing uncertainty around fake news, we believe our strategic focus on providing readers and advertisers alike with news platforms that serve as a trusted source of truth and insight, put together by teams of professional reporters who know their communities, is becoming an ever more important USP.

“By combining digital innovation with real news value, we will continue to see further growth in monetisable audiences.”

On a bottom-line basis, Johnston Press recorded a statutory pre-tax loss of £300.3m for the year, against a £2.2m profit in 2015, having taken a £344.3m impairment on publishing titles and print assets to reflect the “current trading performance of the group”.

Excluding the impairment charge and other items, the firm posted an adjusted operating profit of £42.1m, down 14.5 per cent on a year earlier.

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