Newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror has reported an increase in profits for the first half of 2013 after cutting costs by £28.5m.
Revenues at the national and regional publishing group fell from £362.8m in the same period in 2012 to £332 this year.
But a £28.5m reduction on publishing and printing costs saw pre tax profits rose slightly from 48.1m in 2012 to 49.3m.
Much of the cost reduction came as a result of a fall in the price of newsprint together with around £5.8m in reduced labour costs.
The profits were also boosted by £2.7m arising from the group’s 20pc investment in regional publisher Local World, and a further £0.7m from its investment in the PA Group.
Although circulation fell for all Trinity’s regional titles, the group said the decline was “ahead of the market” compared to the rest of the industry.
The report said: “Although the market remains difficult for our regional newspaper titles we have seen circulation volume trends ahead of the market for some of our regional titles.
“In particular, four of our daily titles, the Liverpool Echo, the Daily Post (North Wales), the Huddersfield Examiner and the South Wales Echo achieved declines of around 7% against a daily regional market that is forecast to be down circa 10%
In his report, chief executive Simon Fox said the group had made “significant progress” in terms of harnessing the strength of its journalists and audience.
He highlighted greater content sharing between national and regional brands, singling out the April Jones story as an example.
“Our reporting teams worked together to enhance our coverage of the trial of April Jones’s killer and the aftermath of a road rampage in Cardiff, and we have launched Trinity Mirror Wire, which gives all of our newsrooms access to the best live news stories and pictures from across the Group on a daily basis,” he said.
He also highlighted the launch of “hybrid” editions on the Birmingham Mail, Western Mail and Reading Post with the paid for circulation being supplemented by free copies.
Added Simon: “I am pleased with the progress we have made in the first half. The Group is producing some outstanding journalism and in a challenging market is outperforming its peers on a number of measures in both print and online.
“Whilst still at an early stage, our transformation plan has got off to an encouraging start and this provides me with confidence in the performance for the year. ”
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So, as usual, the only way the company can ‘make’ money is by reducing the overheads. Reducing costs makes sense but not when it means that the product the company sells is being massively reduced in quality. And don’t get me started on their digital ‘strategy’ which has a strange similarity to the movement of a squash ball.
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The content sharing seems mainly to include filling acres of space with bland feature material on overseas holidays, handbags, recipes and such like, plus pages-worth of adverts promoting the national Mirror and its website. The amount of regional news in some of the company’s regional dailies is dwindling ever-more rapidly. The Birmingham Mail in particular is a pitiful product for Britain’s second city.
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How do titles ‘achieve’ a decline of 7% what appalling management speak mumbo jumbo.
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These are encouraging results for the sector
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Glad to hear some of our titles are “achieving” slightly better declines than others. Next thing you know, we’ll be getting a bonus.
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Love that. ‘Achieving a decline’ Just brilliant way of trying to justify a grim picture
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As someone whose long career in newspapers ended in redundancy because of the brainwave that is ‘shared content’, I’d just like to say how delighted I am that my departure played some small part in increasing Trinity’s profits.
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Reduced pages,lots of national and overseas news in a regional newspaper.Poor quality paper Less quality photographs all add-up to circulation going down in time,as the readers get fed up.
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