Johnston Press today said it expected revenues to be down 5pc in first half of 2015, citing “uncertainty” around the General Election outcome.
The regional publisher issued a trading update today which warned that in the period 1 Janaury to 4 July, its total revenues were expected to fall by around 5pc.
JP issued the statement ahead of its interim results, which are due to be published on 11 August, and the publisher warns that its profits are likely to be hit.
The statement said the company had traded well in the first quarter of 2015 but the second quarter had been impacted by a slowdown in general trading, with the election highlighted as a key factor.
Chief executive Ashley Highfield, pictured above, said: “Trading conditions in the first half of 2015 have undoubtedly been challenging, especially in the period around the General Election – a time when there was also a high degree of uncertainty in the wider market.
“Whilst we expect this will have an impact on profit both at the half year and the full year, there are positive indicators coming through with digital growth and continued strong cash flow.”
The trading update said that during the first 26 weeks of the year, advertising revenue was expected to fall by 5pc, compared to 4.3pc for the same period last year, while circulation revenue was also expected to drop by around 5.5pc.
JP’s statement added that management had taken action to “mitigate much of the revenue reduction” but profits for the first half of the year were likely to be “marginally” below last year’s figure.
The company has also said that it will continue to invest to drive revenue growth but will make further cost savings.
It added that full-year profits were likely to be “slightly below market expectations”.
The publisher said that its digital audience continues to grow, with the number of average monthly unique users increasing by more than 20pc.
Digital revenues also grew by around 17pc in the period.
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
Nice one, Ash.
Report this comment
Nice one, Ash. Blame everything & everyone but your own short-sighted approach to news coverage.
Report this comment
Due to what? Is he having a laugh?
Report this comment
Digital revenues also grew by around 17pc in the period.
17pc of what? What are digital revenues?
Report this comment
Logically you’d expect revenue to be up for a period where an election has “created uncertainty”, no?
If people aren’t sure what the mood or likely outcome is and want to be informed, surely they’ll pick up their local paper to put themselves in the picture?
Or perhaps not given JP papers are full of toss these days.
Report this comment
Is that the best they can come up with?
Sounds like the last desperate throes of a sinking ship if that’s the reason he believes his business is in the state it’s in, 4/10 for excuses, must do better
Report this comment
Jump or pushed, Highfield has to go.
Report this comment
All you suckas who didn’t take the voluntary – good luck!!!!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Report this comment
Methinks more “exciting” relaunches could be on the cards come September.
Report this comment
Oops! A profit warning.
No one saw that coming, probably too busy scanning the horizon for the fabled digital/print ‘tipping point’.
http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2014/news/johnston-press-nearing-digital-tipping-point/
As the scope for further cost savings diminishes stand by for more ‘leaves on the line’ ‘wrong kind of snow’ ‘weather too hot/too cold’ announcements.
Report this comment
Kenny G has asked the real question – 17pc of what? Well, Kenny, my spies tell me JP had fifty quid of digital revenue in the previous 6 months, so that’s £58.50 for this period. Top dollar, my friends – follow those zeroes and ones.
Report this comment
Circulations continuing to fall! What a surprise considering hard news is no longer a priority. Only advertising revenue counts – or doesn’t in the case of JP.
Report this comment
Nothing to do with office closures, cost cutting, over-centralisation, price increases, ridiculous workloads, low workforce morale, “digital first” and staff leaving in droves then…….
Report this comment
The second half of 2015 causes a slowdown in sales due to the massive discovery of aliens on Pluto…. It’s true cos i’ve just come back in time using Plutoeon technology passed down by the God-like aliens (especially one Plutoeon named Bob, who has amassed a following just like Jesus did) and I thought i’d better let people of Earth know this now, rather than later, as knowing now is better so that people can better prepare for the future… Right, now i know you all want to know is there a future with JP in the mix? Now that would be telling….
Report this comment
And this from the man whose salary trebled in the last year. Could there possibly be any connection. Meanwhile, in other news, over in Glasgow the Herald is just rubbing salt into the Scotsman’s wounds by actually increasing circulation. Same market conditions, different results. Go figure, Ashley!
Report this comment
We should be worried that a leader speaks such tosh and does not appear to know it.
Report this comment
Share price is down 18.5% to 115.75p , the equivalent of 2.3p if you forget about the 50x share consolidation. Unbelivable excuse of the election, I’m surprised he didn’t blame it on the problems in Greece.
Report this comment
‘Continue to invest’? I’ve seen nothing but office closures, staff cuts, and new schemes brought in as part of cost cutting. Yet the editorial board can afford £1.6 million for Mr Highfield’s salary and bonuses. Priorities eh?
Report this comment
Went back to an old JP haunt the other day. Local weekly office had a sign on it saying “buy your paper here” and then the word “closed” underneath. Another, smaller, sign said the office was now closed to the public. Nothing on the door – nothing – to say what people should do if they want to speak to a reporter. No contact details. It’s almost as if they didn’t want anyone to get in touch. No need. Just churnalism now. News kiosk a few metres away had to dig around to find me a copy of the paper. No sign of it on the racks, although all the opposition there in numbers. No profile. Read the paper and it didn’t take long….under 30 news stories the lot, half of them written by the same reporter. The rest filled with generic bursts of gardening, finance, health, etc etc. not interesting stuff, just bumph. Pictures shocking….the worst was billed as “picture of the week” which was a fuzzy amateur snap of a vicar at some event with acres of ugly space either side, including a very fat bloke downing a can of lager. Pitiful picture. That, Ashley, is why profits are down. The products are now so poor, so difficult to find and interact with, so unsatisfying, that no-one wants to read them or advertise in them. You have cheapened them to the point of extinction. I kept faith with JP, I bought plenty shares. You, Ashley, appear to be doing very nicely for yourself. My share money has been wasted. I, like your customers, have now given up on you because you have given up on producing newspapers. It’s just rubbish now.
Report this comment
Do you get the impression the God of Capitalism’s been waiting for this moment for some time!?
Report this comment
Good one. i always blame politicians when things don’t go right.
Report this comment
That’s it Ash, it was the election that’s made it all bad. Not at all JP’s short-sighted, daft and completely out-of-touch approach to running newspapers!
And this guy’s an ‘advisor’ for various quangos? Oh dear.
Report this comment
Wait for it….. Wait for it…. here it comes, another round of cuts, job going, no spending, tighten your belts etc etc, all to fund the really great job AH is doing. Can it get any worse. Watch this space.
Report this comment
Advertising revenues should be making a difference, now that the economy is on the up, but JP has invested too much in digital and not retained the staff that could have made an impact in good quality, local print advertising. This is what the local advertisers are crying out for. What they are being sold is poor ads, many containing errors, which are not being corrected after first appearing. Even testimonials are not immune! There is no longer the quantity of advertising, nor the quality. The chosen provider of advertising, in India, may be available 24/7 and sell themselves well, but the advertisers that used to fill full pages of the local papers no longer do so, and there’s no designer to go and visit with a rep to impart to them how valued their business is, and how making them succeed breeds JP success.
Report this comment
But but but didn’t JP cash in on the election with all those Tory wraparounds?
Report this comment
I had to check the source of the quote as it reads like something David Icke would come out with!
Good luck JP staff on the ‘cost saving’ measures to come, think we know what that means don’t we ?
Report this comment
Ashley sold £258,000 worth of shares late May – hardly a vote of confidence?
What I would like to know is if operating margins are reducing, sales are reducing why in the last report did they spend £4.6m “for retention and incentivisation plans for senior managers and performance bonus’s for executive directors”?
A performance bonus for what exactly? For reducing margins, sales and writing off more assets I suppose.
Report this comment
They are getting a certain amount of digital revenue from all the adverts and widgits etc on their bloated pages – on my local newspaper my Ghostery ad blocker says it has blocked 18 different ones!
Report this comment
After the next round of cuts, I reckon Ashley’s salary might be more than the entire editorial staff combined.
So glad I’m out. If you’re not yet then run for your life if they offer a good redundo package.
Report this comment
Working for a non-JP independent paper as I do – Carry On Ash – doing a great job. Advertisers and readers are flocking to us with scathing comments about the JP weekly which used to be the ‘bible’ of the area. Keep it up and we will have this patch to ourselves and yes, people do still read proper newspapers. Obviously.
Report this comment
Digital revenues up 17%, total revenues down 5%,don’t worry folks trust in the wonderfull Ashley world of FREE digital news to get profits upwards!
Report this comment
I endorse Hacking Cough. Work for less money for a small, modest, honest indie paper. No company slogans and bull excrement from boardroom and group (non) editors. No crap IT and templates and copy gets checked by people know English. There is life beyond JP Newsquest et al.
Report this comment
Having just read these latest remarks, I have to ask how anyone can possibly take AH seriously!
Report this comment
Blame the BBC, blame the Election . . . but just watch out for next half figures and the first effects of Ashey’s latest Newsroom Without A Future initiative. Two new senior editorial appointees at one JP centre promptly fled within 24 hours (you can find their jobs re-advertised above). And all this from a man appointed to advise the Government on the future of the BBC. Beggars belief.
Report this comment
And this is one of the people, remember, who is listed as an “expert” on the panel for the BBC charter renewal discussions. God help those of us who love the Beeb!
Report this comment
Digital digital digital! JP thinks 90 year old Betty or 22 year old Mike in his work van on a building site are going to get all their news and info from an ipad??? Get real, both print AND digital are needed. JP still has a few design studios dotted about, but they are almost forgotten by most of the company. If the company wants the profits of the good old days, use them!
Report this comment
So glad its not down to the incompetence of Ashley and his board.
With the uncertainty generated by an election everyone has known the date of for five years, it must be only natural that people would not turn to newspapers to find out what’s happening.
As Ashley is not a journalist I assume he doesn’t realise that saying something is up by 17% is meaningless unless you say from what or to what. 17% of zero is still zero, Ashley.
Report this comment
All you suckas who didn’t take the voluntary – good luck!!!!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Many of us volunteered but were not so lucky. What you also have to consider is that for some people redun isn’t worth it if they’ve not been there long
Report this comment
Say what you like on HTFP, Ashers has last laugh with fat salary and no doubt big pay-off when the penny finally drops in the boardroom on his ability to inspire.
Report this comment
Revenues and circulations continue to fall due to sheer incompence.
Report this comment
The comments from Hacking Cough say it all. This is happening throughout the JP titles. Circulation, advertising and share prices are going through the floor. And still they persist..
Report this comment