Circulation for the group's flagship newspaper is also weak. Full-rate sales in the UK have fallen more than 35% over the last four years. In the most recent set of ABCs, the Financial Times was down 1.23% to 425,984.
Pearson is predicting a turnaround, claiming that UK circulation is stabilising with "three consecutive months of modest year-on-year growth".
However, losses at the FT fell by £2m, down from £5m over the same period last year, and Pearson is optimistic that the paper will break even by the end of 2005.
The FT's advertising revenues were up 5% and FT.com is also performing well, with ad revenue up more than 20% as subscriber numbers continue to rise. FT.com has 3.9m unique users and 80,000 paying subscribers, and has been profitable since the end of 2002.
"We are very pleased with the start we've made on 2005," Scardino said. "We still have the majority of the year's trading ahead of us, but the first-half momentum supports our confidence that we will meet our financial goals."
Penguin, Pearson's book publishing arm, has experienced a 5% hike in sales.
The group's interim results for the six months to June 30 were unveiled today. However, they are unlikely to halt continuing speculation that Pearson could sell the FT. This despite Scardino previously insisting that the FT would be sold "over my dead body".
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