Johnston Press ad income falls 19%

Advertising revenue at Johnston Press’ Irish operations fell by just over 19% last year, to £8.9m (€11m).

Total advertising revenue at the Edinburgh-based newspaper group fell 9% to £231.3m in a challenging — and loss-making — year for the business.

Despite generating underlying pre-tax profits of £28.4m — down nearly 7% on the previous year — a £163.7m impairment charge on the value of its publishing titles pushed Johnston into the red, on a pre-tax basis, to the tune of £143.8m. The same charge in 2010 amounted to only £13.1m in comparison.

Group revenues were down by just over 6% last year at £373.8m; with underlying operating profits falling by over 10% to £64.6m.

Basic earnings per share were down by 4.6% to 3.50c, but the group also managed to lower its net debt by just over 9% to £351.7m.

The group owns a portfolio of nearly 30 regional titles on the island of Ireland (14 in the Republic and 13 in the North), which it unsuccessfully tried to sell a few years back.

Johnston entered the Irish market in 2005 through the acquisition of the Leinster Leader Group. Its titles include the Kilkenny People and the Limerick Leader.

As part of yesterday’s results announcement, chief executive Ashley Highfield was not overly enthusiastic regarding the outlook for the business here.

“The economic environment in Ireland remained very challenging with the year-on-year advertising decline of 19.1% being the same as in 2010. Our operations there remain profitable, but it is unlikely that we will see a significant improvement in the performance of these operations until there is a wider improvement in the Irish economy,” he said.

Johnston also said that conditions have remained “challenging” during 2012, with ad revenues down by 10.6% year-on-year.

Despite this, Mr Highfield said that management was confident of boosting growth through a relaunch and revitalisation of some of its newspapers, as well as better use of its websites and smartphone technology.