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Johnston Press revenues fall but advertising recovers in April

Published: 10:30 18 May 2016 BST

i-Newspaper-Rex
The i's daily print sales peaked at 297,849 in April, up 7% over March highs

Newspaper publisher Johnston Press plc (LON:JPR) reported lower revenue in the early part of the year, but said the advertising market picked up in April.

Johnston, which owns a stable of local papers as well as the ‘i’ and the Scotsman, said adjusted group revenue fell 13.7%  in the 17 weeks to April 30.

It said the sector continued to face challenging trading and volatility in the advertising market in the first quarter.

But while the rate of revenue decline for the first quarter was 14.4%, it improved to 11.5% in April.

Advertising revenues in the period fell 16.9%, following a 17.9% decline in the first quarter against strong year-on-year comparatives but with an improved rate of decline of 13.2% in April.

Digital revenues were down 5.7% in the first quarter but up 4.5% in April.

Johnston Press bought the ‘i’ newspaper from the owner of the Evening Standard, Evgeny Lebedev, last month.

The national quality tabloid’s unaudited daily print sales peaked at 297,849 in April, up 7% over the March 2016 peaks.

On May 10, Johnston launched the paper in Northern Ireland. While the ‘i’ has done well, Trinity Mirror plc’s  (LON:TNI) attempt to emulate its success with a new daily "lifestyle" tabloid known as New Day ended in failure when the Daily Mirror publisher closed it after about two months due to lower-than-expected circulation.

The 'i's website inews.co.uk launched on 14 April, reaching 638,000 unique users in the first month and consuming 1.8m page views.

Edinburgh-based Johnston has been cutting costs following a decline in revenue and announced an operational review in January that was expected to result in job losses across the UK.

It said on Wednesday that it was continuing to consider selling certain assets, with a view to cutting debt and further reducing financing costs.

A spokesman said: "At this point, the board expects performance for the full year to be within the range of market expectations."

Shares in Johnston fell 0.75p, or 1.9%, to 38.75p in mid-morning London trading.

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