thelondonpaper cuts losses but doubles overdraft

thelondonpaper racked up losses of almost £13 million and nearly doubled the size of its overdraft to over £26 million in the 12 months to the end of June 2008.

News International’s NI Free Newspapers subsidy, which was specifically set up to publish the Murdoch-owned freesheet, reported a pre-tax loss of £12.9 million, according to accounts filed with Companies House.

However, the publishing group’s annual loss was lower than the £16.8 million lost it its first 10 months from September 2006 to June 2007.

The accounts also show that the company increased the size of its overdraft facility to £26.9 million in the 12 months to June 2008 from the £13.7 million it held in its first ten months.

As a result, its debts rose from £18.3 million to £31.1 million.

NI Free Newspapers’ turnover in the year to June 2008 was £14 million, up from the £8 million that the group made in the 10 months to the end of June 2007.

Meanwhile, total costs of the group increased slightly from £24.6 million to £25.7 million over the same periods.

A londonpaper spokesperson told MediaGuardian.co.uk: “Advertisers have signalled their support for thelondonpaper as revenues have risen about 75%.

“The results demonstrate thelondonpaper is on track, we are encouraged by its performance against the current market.”

The title has just relaunched its website with a fresh look design in a bid to be more engaging with users (see thelondonpaper revamps website).

The new-look site, designed by agency Nomensa, features more advertising opportunities and allows readers to include their interactions with the paper on their Facebook page.

thelondonpaper is handed out every weekday afternoon and evening across central London and has a distribution of almost 600,000, while its rival London Lite distributes just over 400,000 each weekday (see ABC London Newspaper Focus: Mar 2009).

Full coverage of the latest ABC figures, for April, will be available on NewsLine from 12 noon today.