Trading Update

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.

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