Johnston Press ad revenue rises by 13%

British regional media group Johnston Press said advertising revenue at its Irish newspaper titles was up by 13 per cent in the first nine weeks of this year.

The Irish growth was achieved against the backdrop of an overall decline of 2.9 per cent in the entire group's advertising revenue for the start of the year.

Johnston Press bought the Leinster Leader group in Ireland for €139 million in 2005. It also owns the Kilkenny People, Longford Leader and Leitrim Observer.

"2006 was a challenging year for the company, but Ireland was a very different picture," said Johnston Press chief executive Tim Bowdler. "We had very good advertising growth of almost 8 per cent from the Republic of Ireland titles last year and 13 per cent for the first nine weeks of 2007."

He said the Irish advertising revenues were seeing no adverse impact from interest rate rises or the recent spate of job losses.

The group, which has more than 300 titles, posted a 16 per cent rise in revenues in 2006 to €602.2 million on the back of a number of acquisitions and said it expected revenues in 2007 to be similar to last year. But profit before tax and non-recurring items dropped by 6 per cent to £146.7 million and earnings per share fell by 5 per cent to 36.66 as as the UK media industry suffered from a downturn in the advertising market. Recruitment advertising was worst affected, in part as a result of the reduction in spending by local government, the company said.

"In the second six months, we saw advertising revenue at the group decline by 6.8 per cent. We have reduced the rate of decline and it has dropped to 2.9 per cent in the first nine weeks of this year. It's an encouraging trend but we are not yet seeing real growth," said Mr Bowdler.

He declined to comment on reports the group was interested in acquiring the Buy&Sell title.

The company said it operates 317 local websites and launched 150 new publications in 2006.

"Our online revenue continues to grow rapidly but from a small base. In the broader context, we believe the main issues relating to advertising volumes are linked to overall economic conditions rather than online migration," said chairman Roger Parry.