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The Daily Mirror publisher reported a 22.8% year-on-year drop in pre-tax profits from £186.1m to £145.2, with group revenues falling from £932.3 to £871.7.

The group said: "Faced with falling revenues and inflationary cost pressures, particularly significant newsprint price increases, 2009 will see a continued focus on the management of costs.

"This included a tight recruitment policy and the implementation of a Group-wide pay freeze. We are confident of achieving new cost savings of at least £25m in 2009."

Originally, Trinity planned £20m in cutbacks, but this figure has been increased.

Its regional advertising revenues fell 37% year on year in January and February, while national ad revenues fell 16% over the same period.

By comparison, earlier this month, Daily Mail & General Trust said advertising revenues in January fell by 23% at its national newspaper division and by 40% across its regional titles.

Trinity Mirror added that advertising revenues are "expected to decline throughout 2009".

Across its national titles, revenues fell year on year from £487.6m to £475.7m, with operating profit falling from £94.3m from £88.9m, a fall of 5.7%.

Advertising and circulation revenues on the national titles were down 9.5% and 3.2% year on year respectively.

Digital revenues increased by 27.1% to £43.6m, with digital revenues now representing 5% of group revenues. While flagging up that "good progress" has been made towards its goals of 24 million unique users by 2010 and £100m of digital revenue by the end of 2011, it warned that "the severity of the economic downturn is expected to slow digital growth in the near term".

The results follow the company announcing this week the axing of up to 70 editorial positions across its Scottish titles - the Daily Record and Sunday Mail - as part of a move to integrate its offering.

Sly Bailey, chief executive of Trinity Mirror, said: "Trinity Mirror has performed creditably in very difficult trading conditions. While advertising revenues were under extreme pressure, we delivered full-year results ahead of market forecasts.

"In spite of the downturn, I am a firm believer that careful management of our portfolio of strong print and online brands will enable us to navigate our way through the challenging market conditions as we make the transition to a new lower-cost multi-platform business model."