Johnston Press PLC Trading Update (2260G)
November 19 2015 - 2:00AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMJPR
RNS Number : 2260G
Johnston Press PLC
19 November 2015
19 November 2015
Trading Update
Johnston Press plc ("the Group"), one of the leading local media
groups in the UK, announces its trading update for the 17 weeks to
31 October 2015.
The Board expects underlying profit and net debt for the full
year to be in line with expectations. We have retained our focus on
cost savings, delivering strong cashflows and debt reduction.
Underlying total revenues for the 17 week period to 31 October
fell 8.8% year on year, having fallen 7.6% in the second
quarter.
Underlying digital revenues were up 8.4%, whilst Publishing
revenues fell 10.8%, with print advertising revenues down
14.7%.
1XL, our digital advertising exchange partnership, launched in
late 2014, helped our National digital advertising category grow by
106.5% in the period, and has enabled us to achieve overall growth
in national combined print and online display revenues of 3.8% for
the period.
Former classified categories of Employment and Property declined
22.4% and 20.8% respectively in the period impacting heavily on
both overall print and digital revenues.
Digital audience growth remains a priority and the number of
unique users has grown on average by 22% to 21.5m per month during
the period. Circulation revenues were down 7.2% in the period,
having declined 6.5% in the second quarter.
We have continued to focus on offsetting revenue decline with
cost reduction, and have made good progress in controlling
production, editorial and advertising costs in line with our
strategic initiatives: 'News room of the future' and 'Sales force
of the future'.
In October we announced that we had closed or merged 11 small
free print titles as part of the portfolio simplification
programme. This programme has continued with seven further titles
being closed or merged, which will help our strategy to align
resource to brands and geographies offering the greatest
opportunity.
Enquiries
Johnston Press
Ashley Highfield, Chief
Executive 020 7612 2601
David King, CFO 020 7612 2602
Bell Pottinger
Dan de Belder 020 3772 2561
Zoë Pocock 020 3772 2574
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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