Johnston Press CEO Ashley Highfield
Newspaper publisher Johnston Press has reported half yearly loss of £2.25m compared with losses of £192.10m a year ago following its £365 million refinancing earlier this year .
The group which publishes many well-known northern titles including The Yorkshire post last month announced a series of “significant structure changes” which are intended to drive the business strategy and accelerate digital growth.
Today’s interim results announcement shows total underlying revenues at the firm fell to £135.8m, but chief executive Ashley Highfield said the year-on-year decline had slowed to 4.3 per cent, compared with 5.3 per cent during the first half of 2013.
He added: “There is a real momentum gathering pace within the Group, with innovation and creativity at the heart of new launches during H1, including our latest digital jobs offering Smartlist for Engineers, our ground breaking partnership with Sky, a re-launched WOW24/7 national what’s-on entertainment website, the coming out of Beta of Digital KitBag, the Scotsman Scottish Referendum website, the relaunch in print and online of The Yorkshire Post, and brand new football apps for our major premier league and championship titles.
“With digital audiences regularly hitting 16m (up 39.4% year on year), July hitting 18m and digital revenues now representing 16.5% of total advertising revenues up from 12.7% during H1 of 2013 we are fast becoming a genuinely multi-media company.”
