Johnston Press narrows its losses

The fall in advertising revenue for the group has continued into 2013

Edinburgh-based media group, Johnston Press, has announced it has cut its losses but has seen a fall in advertising revenues.

The company, whose titles include The Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post, made losses of £7m in 2012 compared with £144m in 2011.

Johnston said a major restructuring had cut its "cost base and its net debt significantly".

The number of staff in the group fell by more than a fifth to 4,350.

Advertising revenues for the whole of 2012 fell by 12.7% and were down more than 15% in the first 10 weeks of 2013.

The company's debt was reduced from £351m to £319m.

Johnston said its newspaper sales "remained resilient" with circulation revenues down by 1.1%.

The company, which publishes nearly 300 local papers, is in the process of re-launching many of its titles and moving them from daily to weekly publications.

Chief Executive Ashley Highfield said: "Good progress has been made in the process of transforming the group in 2012 and the changes made provide a strong platform for us to build on in 2013 as we invest in refreshing our print portfolio, and simultaneously move our operation to be real-time, digitally-led, social, mobile and ever more local."

He added: "The economic environment remains challenging, but with the steps that we have taken to improve the effectiveness of the business, to accelerate the growth of our digital revenues, and to continue to manage our costs tightly, we believe that we are well positioned to deliver a strong operating performance in 2013 along with continued strong cash flow."