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Further cost savings in prospect at Johnston Press

Regional publisher Johnston Press has promised further cost savings in 2012 in a financial update published today.

The company published its latest interim management statement this morning, showing a 9.1pc year-on-year drop in advertising revenue in the first 18 weeks of the year.

Although the revenue decline has slightly slowed compared to a 9.6pc fall in the first quarter of the year, the company said the advertising outlook for the year remained “volatile.”

The statement said costs will continue to be tightly controlled, adding:  “We expect that further cost savings will be achieved in 2012.”

Today’s figures showed classified print advertising revenues down 11.5pc year-on-year with recruitment down 16.2pc.

However digital revenues enjoyed an “excellent” start to the year, up 13.9pc in the first 18 weeks, with online display, online recruitment and the Find it business directory helping to drive the growth.

Circulation revenue continued to be “resilient” according to the report, down 2pc year-on-year for the period.

The company said the proposed relaunch of its 170 paid-for titles, which include five of its daily newspapers switching to weekly publication, would bring benefits in the second half of the year.

Said the statement:  “The advertising outlook for the year remains volatile, but we anticipate that the strategy that the Group has set out will provide benefits from the relaunches of all of the group’s paid-for titles during the year, along with continued improvement in digital performance throughout 2012.

“We expect that the results for the full year will be in line with market expectations.”

Johnston Press has also announced today that its local online motors offering will in future be powered by motors.co.uk.

The used car portal, originally launched by DMGT but since sold to US-based Manheim, already has partnerships with regional newspaper rivals Trinity Mirror, Northcliffe Media and Archant.

Chief executive Ashley Highfield said:  “Motors.co.uk is one of the most dynamic players in the online motors space and this partnership gives us an exciting new platform for our local websites and great reach for our motors advertisers.

“It forms another step in our strategy to deliver highly engaged, local website portals across all of our markets.”

19 comments

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  • May 17, 2012 at 9:43 am
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    Just so you’re clear JP, you do actually need some staff to get the papers out and run the websites.

    How about doing something to lift staff morale rather than constantly doing your workers down ALL the time.
    Everyone is fearful of their jobs. The paper relaunch has massively undermined editors.
    The dailies to weeklies and merging papers in the north is an incredibly unpleasant business.
    The staff questionnaire was extremely limited in its scope.

    Even if some of it is necessary, try treating your people a bit better.
    Maybe shaving a few hundred grand off the directors’ bonuses and doing something nice for those who do the proper work.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 10:05 am
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    “Further cost savings in prospect at Johnston Press”…..surprise,surprise.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 10:11 am
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    Staff morale?

    When it’s confidently asserted that everyone WILL praise the new strategy and templates, it’s obvious we’re in the world of emperor’s new clothes here.

    The shrieking of punch-drunk pips is getting ever louder, but in the Brave New World, JP execs seem oblivious, worse, intentionally ignorant, of the damage being done, the experience being lost and the goodwill evaporating quicker than a snowball in the Sahara.

    The Promised Land could well just be a fata morgana, and then where will everyone be? Not cushioned by a healthy bonus, that’s for sure.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 10:11 am
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    Aman has got it spot on.

    The shambolic rushing in of the relaunched papers is a recipe for disaster, let alone the kamikaze decision to have so many looking the same and removing any creative licence from editors, and yet you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll be journalists who will probably take the brunt of any cuts JP decide to make.

    Ashley Highfield has put his head very much on the block with his strategy, which although a breath of fresh air in some respects, also has great potential to bring the company to its knees – that’s if it isn’t already.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 10:33 am
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    No chance of a new three-wheeler for Del Boy, then!

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  • May 17, 2012 at 10:53 am
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    Will the last one out please turn off the platform neutral lights?

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  • May 17, 2012 at 12:29 pm
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    Come November I’ll have done 40 years as a Leeds-based Yorkshire Evening Post hack – if I’m still here. So far we’ve lost 40 per cent of editorial jobs on our two daily titles, the YEP and the Yorkshire Post. YEP deadline is 6pm the night before publication and they wonder why circulation falls. All but one of eight YEP district offices went years ago. Our circulation area has been deliberately shrunk. We’ve pulled out of rich news areas such as the Dales and the east coast. We’ve got one editor for two papers. He’s called for volunteers for redundo and there’s a trickle. Good people too, mates, real pros, but probably nowhere near enough to avoid compulsories. Any chance of a fight back? Well we fought three years ago and hurt them but they sacked our people anyway. But now it’s not just the awful prospect of more job losses. It’s the hell-hole of a workplace that’s probably going to be left for those who remain. Surely somewhere along the road people will find the heart to defend themselves.
    Peter Lazenby
    NUJ FoC
    Yorkshire Evening Post.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 1:20 pm
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    Here’s another set of company figures hiding behind digital revenue percentages.
    Digital advertising is up 13.9%… which tells us precisely nothing.
    How much is it in cash terms? Then give us that figure as a proportion of the total revenue pot. Then we can work out how significant it is in the great scheme of things.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 1:36 pm
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    Good old Peter Lazenby, pulling no punches as usual. This is the kind of talented, experienced, passionate reporter JP should be falling over backwards to keep. Instead, it looks like he’s as fed up as the rest of us.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 2:00 pm
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    Atex and other content managment systems put the nails in the NUJ coffin. Firms can now employ cheaper non-journalists to process their templates and, as far as they’re concerned, any old fool can fill the boxes.
    It’s progress, but it ain’t journalism, and the NUJ failed to support some chapels well enough while the axe was swinging. Now it’s probably too late. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 2:10 pm
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    It’s a tradegy but the facts are….

    Share price down to 5p
    Market capitalisation £32m
    Debt £350m

    Not an obvious platform for investment – it’s difficult to foresee anything but further cutbacks.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 2:19 pm
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    If the powers that be cared for the editorial quality of the newspapers as much as Peter and so many others we might actually get somewhere.

    The cluelessness when it comes to sensing what is required for news and sport coverage to flourish is, quite frankly, alarming.

    And no amount of new beginnings in the digital sense will save JP if its core product – the newspapers – are allowed to drift into poorly-produced and uninteresting pamphlets.

    Regardless of how swanky they might look thanks to our Spanish friends.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 2:56 pm
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    It’s hard to read all this from JP and not have the phrase flogging a dead horse spring to mind.

    They quite clearly over-reached themselves with acquisitions and it appears they did not had the expertise to successfully manage the hugh operation they’d become.

    Be better to call it a day and start selling off the titles to smaller firms that might have an interest in their local communties beyond trying to soak every penny out of them.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 2:58 pm
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    Cutbacks…OK…but where?

    Readers abandoned JP titles partly because, thanks to atex, the quality of the reading matter that went into the papers deteriorated drastically, as rushed reporters were forced to put simply anything in to fill the tyrannical copy boxes.

    Facts went unchecked, standards of English dropped and the public’s perception of their local paper as a respected organ of information dipped.

    Even more cuts will mean the same mistakes being compounded. There will be nobody left to correct them. The dwindling readership’s respect for the papers will fall further.

    We will have signed our own death warrant.

    Stop, JP, for pity’s sake, before it’s too late.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 3:10 pm
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    A lot depends on what you term as journalism nowadays anyway. This isn’t to tar everyone with the same brush because there is much talent around but there are also many who seem content to go along with churnalism: knocking out stories as fast as they can and taking things at face value, agreeing to just go to a press office for a quick banal quote to round off a story and barely questioning anything. Journalism has suffered not just because of the owners but also because some journalists themselves have not applied themselves well enough. A lot of this is due to cost-cutting which has ensured fewer reporters have to fill the same amount of space but I have certainly seen declining standards among new recruits who, in so many cases, feel Twitter, Facebook and blogs are substitutes for calls, contacts and old fashioned leg work. Without quality, readers will leave. Simple as that.

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  • May 17, 2012 at 3:10 pm
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    We take regular calls and letters from readers, picking up on the glaring typos, errors, production problems they’ve seen in the paper week in, week out.
    Many have said they’ve simply had enough…

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  • May 17, 2012 at 5:12 pm
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    It is obvious to all journalists that JP under Ashey HiPad is going to hell – and not even in a handcart, JP can’t afford one.
    It is scandalous what has happened at JP – and the man at the tiller when all the damage was wreaked with crazy acquisitions is still there while hundreds of good staff have now been sacrificed on the digital alter.

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  • May 18, 2012 at 3:55 pm
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    JP board are you listening. it’s simple. you are asking too few people to do too much with a crappy IT and Atex system. Quality is down the pan. Pathetic sent-in copy and pictures now the norm.
    Not moaning. FACT. Maybe you can’t afford more staff. But without them your ideas (some of them good) and some once-excellent papers are doomed.

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