Regional newspaper group, Johnston Press, saw overall revenues for the year reaching £520.2 million, a slight year on year increase of 0.2%, reflecting the recent depression in the market.
Operating profit for 2005 was £177.7 million, while underlying earnings per share were up by 2% year on year, reaching 38.62p.
Elsewhere, the group’s digital publishing activities continued to exhibit strong growth, with page impressions up by 49%, exceeding 30 million per month and enjoying over 2.5 million unique users per month.
The challenging market looks set to continue into 2006, with Johnston Press saying the market remains difficult, with no early signs of recovery.
Commenting on the results and prospects for the rest of the year, Roger Parry, chairman of Johnston Press, said: “The Board is delighted with progress made integrating our recent acquisitions and, providing market conditions do not significantly worsen, we are confident that 2006 will again be a year of progress in building our local media franchises.”
Johnston recently announced plans to acquire the entire issued share capital of publishers of the Scotsman newspaper and scotsman.com, Scotsman Publications (see Johnston Buys Scotsman Publications For £160 Million).
Johnston purchased the company for a cash consideration of £160 million, with the newspaper publisher claiming the acquisition will be “earnings enhanced” within the first year.
Related Links
