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Profits boost for regional publishing groups

Newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror has revealed that its £14.2m investment in fellow publishing group Local World has more than repaid itself.

Annual results for Trinity Mirror published today show the group made an overall pre-tax profit of £102.3m in 2014.

The figures also reveal that TM has now received more in dividends from its share of the profits of Local World than its original investment.

Trinity paid £14.2m for a 20pc share in LW when the group was formed from a merger of Northcliffe Media and Iliffe News and Media in January 2013.

Today’s figures show that Trinity’s share of LW’s profits in 2014 was £5.2m.

This suggests that LW made a profit of £26m in 2014, its second full year of operation, on top of £25.5m in 2013, although LW has declined to comment on it

The report said: “The Group has now received dividends in excess of the £14.2 million invested in Local World.

Our investment in Local World continues to deliver strong returns with our share of post tax profit for the year up £0.1m to £5.2m.”

The results showed Trinity’s overall revenues in 2014 down to £636.3m from £663.8m the previous year.

Operating costs at the group fell by £25.7m as a result of “structural cost savings” of £15m during the year.

Chief executive Simon Fox commented: “I am pleased with the financial and strategic progress we have made in 2014. We continue to invest across the Group in people and technology and this is delivering significant growth in digital audience and revenue.

“Whilst print has remained challenging, our continued focus on efficiency and cost management has resulted in another year of profit growth.”

Today’s annual report makes reference both to the successful launch of the Sunday Echo and the closure of the Reading Post and other South East titles in December.

It states: “In our regional markets we continue to adapt and refresh our newspapers to ensure they are increasingly relevant and appealing to our readers and advertisers. Our group wide technology platform gives us the capability to add new products on multiple platforms with a minimal increase in costs or resource.

“One such example is the successful launch of the Sunday Echo in Liverpool which has allowed us to increase our audience on a Sunday both in print and online through the provision of more comprehensive football content. All of our major regional daily newspapers are now distributed through the wholesale infrastructure with resulting cost and logistical benefits.

“We continue to challenge the appropriateness of the regional newspaper portfolio and this has led to a rationalisation of our newspaper titles in the South with the closure of seven newspapers at the end of the year.”

The report also highlights the introduction of the new Newsroom 3.1 structure to support a digital-first publishing process in its regional centres.

“The implementation of Newsroom 3.1 which put digital news gathering and audience analytics at the heart of our regional newsrooms has led to a near doubling of our regional digital audiences,” it said.

“This structure, combined with a focus on mobile, social, data journalism and community engagement has put us ahead of other regional news brands. Our national news brands also underwent newsroom reorganisations to better serve growing multi-platform audience.”

The full results can be read here.

4 comments

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  • March 2, 2015 at 11:43 am
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    It’s great news for LW workers who will now receive salary increases for their vital role in delivering these profits! That’s how it works, isn’t it?

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  • March 2, 2015 at 10:32 pm
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    Maybe a £100 bonus for everyone earning under £25,000 a year would be a gesture. Better than screwing the workers to fill the boots of the executives.

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  • March 3, 2015 at 10:41 am
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    Think you’ve somewhat missed the point here chaps. TM is ‘admitting’ that 6 per cent of its revenue comes from digital. The real figure is likely to be somewhat lower. 6 per cent of overall revenue after pouring every resource into growing it and deliberately ignoring print as a strategy? It calls everything which senior management have done into question.

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  • March 3, 2015 at 10:35 pm
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    Proof, once more, that this country doesn’t have newspapers which are unprofitable. It has newspapers which are not profitable enough for the one trick ponies running them into the ground.

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