Poor local press advertising conditions in the south east and London have caused a regional revenue decline of 2.3% at Trinity Mirror for the first half of the year. A decline of 11.6% in this region was offset by growth of 1.7% across the rest of the company’s regional divisions, said a trading statement today.
Recruitment advertising at the regional papers – discounting the three
Metro titles and the
Sunday Business Post – is estimated to have fallen by 5.1% overall and by 21.7% in London/south east. The remaining regional businesses are estimated to grow by 2.8%
Revenue at the three Metro titles for H1 2002 is predicted to be up by 7.9% year on year. Advertising conditions at the group’s three UK national titles, on the other hand, have remained extremely difficult, with very limited visibility, the statement said.
Trinity Mirror estimates that the national papers will turn in a half year ad revenue decline of 10.3%. May and June, however, have seen a significant improvement over the first four months of the year and are expected to show a 0.4% year on year rise.
A robust local advertising market in Scotland has helped the Scottish national newspaper titles to show a decline of just 2.0% during the first half.
Outlook Trinity Mirror says that it is prudent to plan on advertising conditions remaining as they throughout most of the rest of the year.
“It is always difficult to forecast off the back of a second quarter with the bank holidays. This particular time of course with the Jubilee and the World Cup it makes actually trying to understand what is happening out there even more difficult to understand.
“Visibility remains low, in overall terms a low performance, as you have seen in the national newspapers, in May and June has picked up. The regional newspapers – it very much depends on which part of the country you are in as for how performance is. So the overall view going forward is we are planning on the basis that the external outlook remains uncertain,” said chief executive Philip Graf.
Nevertheless, the directors are confident of delivering satisfactory financials for the full year.
Shares remained unchanged at 417½ at 12.30pm today.
