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Bowdler: expecting revenue growth |
Britain's largest newspaper publisher, Trinity Mirror, has sold eight free weekly news-paper titles to Johnston Press for £16.1m in cash. The haul includes the Midlands-based titles, including the Peterborough Herald & Post, the Northampton Herald & Post, the Derby Trader and five other newspapers circulated in the areas. Edinburgh-based Johnston Press said the former Trinity titles would be incorporated into its Midlands divisions. The news comes days after shares in Trinity dropped close to their five-year low due to a sharper than expected slump in advertising revenues. The company announced that revenue from the publisher's national titles, including The Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, fell 10% in June.
The British market for regional free weeklies is in decline, having seen total circulation fall from 41.3 million from 802 titles in 1990 to 25.9 million from 555 titles last year, according to figures from the Newspaper Society.
Johnston Press last month shrugged off the gloom in the UK media industry to report that like-for-like advertising revenues in the first five months of the year were three per cent up on last year.
Johnston's chief executive Tim Bowdler said: "Despite the prevailing mood of economic uncertainty which must give rise to a degree of caution, the board expects continued modest revenue growth."
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