Tag Archives: revenues

Johnston Press chief executive million pound earnings revealed in annual report

Johnston Press chief executive John Fry collected earnings of more than £1 million in 2010, according to the publisher’s annual report, sent out late on Friday afternoon.

The report follows an announcement earlier this month alongside the company’s preliminary results that Fry was to step down within the next year.

According to the figures Fry earned a basic salary of £525,000 in 2010, the same as the previous year, which was then boosted further by benefits and performance related bonus. This led to a total of £1,001,000, an increase on 2009 when Fry received a total of £969,000.

The salary details of other directors were also detailed in the report, with chief financial officer Stuart Paterson, who resigned last year, receiving a total of £520,000 and Danny Cammiade, chief operating officer, receiving an increased total of £618,000.

The report outlines the publisher’s financial performance in 2010, with key statistics including a decrease in total revenues of 7.1 per cent to £398.1 million, a drop in circulation revenues of 2.8 per cent to £96.7 million and an increase in digital revenues of 4 per cent.

Newsquest ad revenue drops almost 8% but digital revenue is on the rise

Fourth-quarter advertising revenues at UK publisher Newsquest were down 7.8 per cent year on year in 2010, while digital revenues were on the up, according to figures published by US parent company Gannett.

Gannett released its financial results for 2010 yesterday, including a detailed report of it’s fourth-quarter revenue.

The US company went on to describe Newsquest as “an internet leader in the UK”, claiming that its network of web sites attracted over 65 million monthly page impressions from approximately 8.8 million unique users in December.

You can read the full release from Gannett here…

Journalism.co.uk reported last week that staff at Newsquest titles in certain regions were understood to have been asked to take a week’s unpaid leave in response to “poor trading conditions”.

An internal Newsquest memo circulated in Wales, Gloucestershire, and the South Midlands said that revenues are “considerably below last year’s performance” and therefore action needed to be taken “to drive revenues and control costs sooner rather than later”.

Mail Online helps DMGT to significant increase in digital revenue

Underlying digital revenues from newspaper websites owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) increased by 54 per cent in the year ending October, due to the “growing success of its primary website, Mail Online” according to the group’s preliminary results published today.

According to the published reports, circulation revenues at the group’s Associated Newspapers titles, which includes the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday and Metro, fell by an underlying two per cent while underlying advertising revenues were up seven per cent, said to have been driven by a “strong performance” from Metro.

Both the Daily Mail and Metro recorded their highest ever operating profit, the report adds.

DMGT’s regional arm Northcliffe recorded several declines, with underlying revenues down £16 million (six per cent), reported revenues have dropped by 8 per cent and advertising revenues were also down by 7 per cent.

Northcliffe: facing another tough year; UK advertising revenue in the first seven weeks down 7 per cent on last year, continuing year‐on‐year trend experienced in September (like‐for‐like decline of 8 per cent). Outlook for first quarter not expected to improve on this trend; will also be affected by higher newsprint costs; focus remains on reducing costs and new revenue opportunities.

Note: Underlying revenues are those adjusted for acquisitions and disposals made in the current and prior year.

Digital revenue helping magazine publisher Future get back on track

Increases in customer publishing and digital revenue have helped magazine publisher Future get “back on track”, according to the company’s preliminary results for the year ending 30 September.

In the report, published today, Future claims that its overall revenues have declined by 1 per cent on last year, with net debt reduced by more than 50 per cent.

The publisher adds that its US business has returned to profit while customer publishing revenue has grown by 43 per cent in the last 12 months.

Advertising revenues declined by five per cent overall, but individually online advertising (which makes up 25 per cent of the advertising revenues) rose by eight per cent.

In the report Stevie Spring, Future’s chief executive said the results show the publisher is back on track.

We’ve returned our US business to profit – a key goal for the year. And made good progress against our strategic priorities – adapting and investing in our business to meet the needs of a rapidly changing content landscape.

Consumer confidence is still fragile on both sides of the Atlantic, so our outlook for 2011 must remain cautious even though we’ve seen an encouraging 5 per cent growth in the second half of 2010.

New figures show ad revenue decline slowing at Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror

Interim management statements published this week by Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror suggest declines in advertising revenues appear to be slowing for both publishers.

In a statement published today, Trinity Mirror said trading since the half year “has remained volatile due to the fragile economic environment and the uncertainty resulting from the Government spending review”.

The Board envisages that the trading environment will remain challenging over the remainder of the year and into 2011, however, it anticipates that the rate of decline in revenues will improve.

The group recorded declines in ‘adjusted’ advertising revenue of 4.6 per cent year-on-year (excluding the acquisition of GMG Regional Media), but overall the company recorded actual advertising growth of 13 per cent in the 17 week period (including the acquisition).

It added that full ownership of Fish4 will boost its digital recruitment ad revenues by £3 million in the first full year.

This report followed Johnston Press’s statement yesterday which reported a decline in total advertising revenue for the second half of the year to date of 5.4 per cent (year-on-year). This represents an improvement on the first half decline of 6.3 per cent, the report adds.

The decline in print advertising revenues excluding recruitment in the second half to date is 2.5 per cent, with the decline in recruitment advertising in the same period being 29.1 per cent.

In order to reduce costs the publisher announced it would be closing its printing operation in Limerick. A spokesperson told Journalism.co.uk this would impact on 29 part-time workers.

WSJ: Thomson Reuters reports 66 per cent profit increase

The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that Thomson Reuters had announced a 66 per cent increase in third-quarter profit, rising from $167 million (19 cents per share) in the same period last year to $277 million, or 32 cents a share.

But within the division which includes its news service profit fell 2.7 per cent, the report adds.

Based on the company’s year-to-date performance and improved momentum, Thomson Reuters now sees revenue being “flat to slightly up” this year, rather than “flat to slightly down.”

In the markets division, which includes the Reuters news service and sales-and-trading operations and makes up a majority of the company’s revenue, revenue edged down 0.5 per cent, to $1.85 billion, while profit fell 2.7 per cent. Revenue in the segment increased 1 per cent before the impact of currency translations.

New figures suggest continued growth for US magazine advertising

Advertising revenue for US magazines continued to increase for the second quarter in a row according to figures released yesterday from the Publishers Information Bureau and posted on the Association of Magazine Media website.

The results for the third quarter of 2010 suggest that rate-card revenue and the number of magazine advertising pages both increased overall compared to the same period in 2009.

The number of ad pages rose by 3.6 per cent following a 0.8 per cent growth in the previous quarter, with a total of 136 magazines reporting a rise in ad pages, compared to 25 magazines in the same period last year. PIB also reported that 132 titles recorded revenue increases this quarter, while only 37 titles did in the same period last year. PIB rate-card revenues were reported to be up by 5.3 per cent.

Reporting on the results the Wall Street Journal said the statistics should give publishers “more hope that the declines that killed dozens of well-known titles in 2009 are behind them”.

Digital ad revenue up 30 per cent at Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal’s latest revenue statistics, detailed in a staff memo from Dow Jones & Company CEO Les Hinton (published on PoynterOnline), show an increase in digital ad revenue of more than 29 per cent.

According to the figures, the publication has recorded year-on-year growth across all platforms in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2011.

Print and online revenues for the publication are reportedly up by more than 17 per cent on the previous year’s figures for the same period, while total print advertising revenue increased by more than 21 per cent.

Print circulation revenue was also reportedly up more than 9 percent, or 13 per cent when including digital.

But while in his memo Hinton makes a comparison to competitor the New York Times Company’s release of revenue statistics last week, paidContent clarifies the potential differences of each in its own report on the figures.

Hinton specifically refers to the New York Times Company’s own figures “as a basis of comparison.” He pointed out that the NYTCo forecast last week that online ad sales would be up 14 percent for the quarter, while print ad revenue would be down five percent. It’s worth noting, however, that those figures include the NYTCo as a whole, while the figures Hinton cites for his company seem to refer only to the performance of the Wall Street Journal.

Paywall subscribers worth a quarter of print counterparts, claims survey

With TheTimes.co.uk and SundayTimes.co.uk still not releasing traffic figures through the Audit Bureau of Circulations, we can’t yet see the impact of the paywall in terms of browser figures. But according to research published by Enders Analysis, the value of a paywall subscriber is only a fraction of a print reader.

The research, carried out by Benedict Evans, compared annual incomes from subscribers for paywalled newspapers TheTimes.co.uk and WSJ.com with those for UK quality daily papers.

The main findings quoted online are as follows:

A newspaper paywall subscriber is worth only a quarter to a third of a print buyer: even if every single print buyer is successfully converted to the paywall, newspapers will still face a basic problem of scale.

Paywalls will not be able to compensate for lower revenue per reader by expanding the audience for paid news, due to the long term decline of circulation, free online news, 24-hour broadcast news and free-sheets.

Future change will be radical: publishers may need to consider producing a newspaper its loyal readers recognise and value with just 200 rather than 500 journalists.

Hatip: paidContentUK

Telegraph.co.uk: News Corp loss of £4.4bn will lead to job cuts

News Corporation has posted losses of £4.4 billion for the last quarter of 2008. Rupert Murdoch has warned of job cuts with losses at News Corp’s UK newspapers expected to be announced next week.

Full story at this link…