The group suffered a 47.4% drop from £26.1m as employment advertising revenues continued to fall. Total sales were down 7.5% to £191.8m with advertising revenues dropping 10% year on year.

The group, however, said that the decline in employment advertising was offset by an upswing in national display advertising.

This was not enough though to prevent Johnston Press axing 179 jobs during the first half of the year, bringing its total headcount down to 5,049.

Elsewhere, digital revenues were down 5% but this turned into growth in May. Circulation revenues were deemed resilient, down 1.8% on the first half of 2010.

The group said it was "delighted" to announce new digital partnerships with Zoopla and Nimble, deals it hopes will boost its property website while the latter will give it an inroad into the burgeoning vouchers arena under the 'Deal Monster' brand.

"The board has confidence that, in the absence of a further significant deterioration in the UK economy, the outcome for the group in 2011 will be broadly in line with current expectations," it said in a statement.

John Fry, chief executive officer of Johnston Press, who will relinquish the position on 31 October, said the group achieved an operating profit before non-recurring items of £33.3m despite the challenging UK economic environment of the first half of 2011, down 17.6% on the first half of 2010.

He added: "We continue to be cautious about the advertising outlook for the second half of the year with total print advertising revenues in the first seven weeks down 8.1%.

"Digital revenues, which returned to year-on-year growth in May, have continued to grow in the second half with the first seven weeks showing an increase of 6.8% on the same period in 2010. Circulation revenues continue to perform well."