Johnston Press shareholders have approved the proposed £360m overall company refinancing package, which includes a £5m stake from TV broadcast giant BSkyB.

During the newspaper company’s Annual General Meeting at Ashurst LLP, in London, yesterday, shareholders voted overwhelmingly to support the package, rubber stamping a deal which will reduce JP’s debts by a third to just under £200m.

Satellite broadcaster BSkyB is grabbing a £5m stake in the owner of The Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post, as part of a massive overall financial overhaul at the newspaper publisher Johnston Press. The Pay TV giant will end up owning nearly 2 per cent of Johnston Press, now that the £360m overall refinancing package has been agreed.

The complex deal will slash the debt burden that has plagued the newspaper publisher in the wake of a series of very costly acquisitions during the mid-2000s buyout boom.

Since the credit crunch struck in 2007, Johnston Press has been forced to hand over the bulk of its profits to its creditors, which include the Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays Bank.

This has greatly limited the options of JP CEO Ashley Highfield (pictured), as he tries to tackle a slump in print advertising revenues by investing in digital editions of his titles.

It is understood that an overwhelming majority of investors backed the restructuring, which was overseen by Highfield – a former BBC executive who launched the BBC iPlayer.

Johnston’s largest shareholder is the Malaysian billionaire, Ananda Krishnan, who owns nearly a fifth of the company.

Under the overhaul plan Johnston will tap shareholders for £137.7m in a rights issue and raise a further £220m through a Bond issue.

Sky has already bought some Johnston stock and will invest a total of £5m for its 1.7% holding.

The company’s shares closed at 17p on Friday, giving it a market value of £117m.

Sky has already struck an advertising aliance with Johnston, which publishes around 250 titles across the UK.

The tie-up will see its 1,600-strong sales force sell advertising time on Sky television to local businesses, such as car dealers and law firms.

Last year, Sky launched its AdSmart platform, which tailors TV ads to specific households based on age, gender, estimated income and where they live.

As many as 500 ads are stored on subscribers’ Sky+ set-top boxes by the new service.

During breaks in live broadcasts, Ads tailored to a specific household can then be sent direct to that subscriber’s screen.

Marking a significant shift in how TV advertising is normally bought and sold, the deal could result in radically increased revenues for both companies.

Owing to the exorbitant cost of buying airtime, small and medium-sized businesses have always, historically, been frozen out of the TV advertising market.

AdSmart will be cheaper, targeting, as it does, a much smaller number of households.