DC Thomson has revealed a £180m pre-tax loss which it is putting down to the initial impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The regional publisher has published its financial statements for the year ending 31 March 2020, which also showed a 5pc drop in newspaper circulation revenues compared to 2019.

The group says it expects the loss, which compares with a £21m profit made the previous year, to be a “one-off event” due to the pandemic and has asserted its belief that its titles have a long-term future.

In the report, the publisher revealed newsstand circulations had recovered in the second quarter of the new financial year.

DC Thomson publishes newspapers including Dundee daily the Courier

In the first quarter, they had been down 16pc on the previous year, while advertising revenues were down by more than 60 pc.

In the report, company chairman Christopher Thomson said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has been, we expect, a one-off event but even so we have taken a cautious accounting view which does not affect our consistent view that our titles and brands have a long term future and value to our stakeholders.

“We still have strong belief in all of our established brands and are engaged in both strengthening the underlying brands by continued cost efficiencies and in working on building new valuable revenue streams in all businesses.”

Mr Thomson went on to praise the work of the company’s press team.

He added: “In our newspaper business the offering of free subscriptions during the lockdown resulted in a significant level of new subscribers.

“Reference has already been made to the exceptional efforts of the press team to retain continuity and this puts us in a good position to exploit print contracts as they become available.”

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