The company, owner of newspapers including the Daily Mirror and The People, reported a rise in pre-tax profits from £80.4m in the first half of 2003 to £101.8m for the same period this year. Turnover was up 6% from £542.1m to £572.7m.
Trinity Mirror's share price leapt on the news, rising almost 2% when the market opened this morning to 610p, a 10.5p increase.
Despite a tumultuous first half of the year, which saw Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan resign over the fake Iraqi torture photo scandal, advertising sales at the group's national newspapers grew by 2.7% from £96.4m to £99m, partly boosted by Euro 2004 in June, but Trinity Mirror said that the market remains volatile. The Scottish national titles, the Daily Record and Sunday Mail, also saw a rise in ad revenue, up 2.9% from £24.4m to £25.1m.
Across all the group's titles, ad sales rose by 5.1% and circulation revenues were up by 6.3%, despite the continuing decline in sales at the Daily Mirror.
Bailey took up the role of chief executive at Trinity Mirror in January 2003, and shortly after began a review of all of the company's businesses in an attempt to maximise profits. Since then, she has done away with the damaging policy of cutting the price of the Daily Mirror and disposed of some assets, including the Irish regional newspaper titles.
Last week, she also took direct control of the group's regional newspaper business following the departure of Stephen Parker, executive director of Trinity Mirror and managing director of its regional newspaper division.
Today, the company said that net cost savings for the first half of the year were £11m, adding to £5m cut last year.
Bailey said: "Our performance-based strategy, Stabilise Revitalise Grow, is delivering. This phase of the group's development has been about improving our performance and today's results demonstrate our ability to meet objectives and show we are creating a fundamentally stronger and better-performing group."
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