In a profit warning statement released this morning (12 November), for the 44 weeks to 1 November 2008, Johnston Press reported that advertising revenue was down 15.5% on the same period last year. In particular, property advertising revenue fell 48.4% year-on-year in the last four months.

However, outgoing chief executive Tim Bowdler said that his company's results were unlikely to differ much from other publishers, proving that the country as a whole is in trouble.

He told PrintWeek: "This is a forward looking indicator. Newspaper advertising is a very good indicator of the state of a nation, similar to car sales and unemployment figures. It tells the story of the UK economy. There is a similar picture across the industry."

Newspaper sales revenue was slightly down, due to lower circulation, while online advertising jumped 37% - although even this slowed in recent weeks.

However, newspaper advertising, which was down by 9.5% at the half year stage, is still falling. Motors dropped 24.3% year-on-year in the last four months, with employment ads down 32%.

One positive for the company is its contract printing revenue, which saw a rise of 5.3%. It is the first full year of Johnston Press' contract to print more than 1m copies of The Sun newspaper for News International.

Bowdler added that he felt that Johnston Press was still a cash generative company, and he was pleased that it had been able to keep costs tight this year. It has closed one plant at Northampton and cut jobs at a second plant in Peterborough.

The company said that it was looking to make significant further cost cuts, although Bowdler would not be drawn on whether that meant further plant closures or redundancies.

Net debt on 1 November was £465m, a reduction of £19m from 30 June. The company expects that this will reduce again between now and the end of the financial year.

Bowdler added that he would still expect Johnston Press to deliver an operating profit for the full year, but at the lower end of current market expectations.