Trinity Mirror predicts improving fortunes despite revenue drop

13 May 2009

Business

Newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror has said that it is cautiously optimistic going forward, despite its revenues continuing to be hit.

However, it is pitching a positive outlook in its Interim Management Statement for the 17 weeks to 26 April 2009, claiming May is expected to see the first signs of improvement.

In the period, Trinity said that year-on-year group revenue fell 18%, with advertising plummeting 30%. Circulation was down by 4%.

Once again, it is the regionals that have suffered the most, with advertising revenue down 36%. The national titles saw a drop of 17% across the period.

However, the company claims that things are on the up and cost-reduction measures, which have been going on for the last year, are expected to help results in the near future.

The company said that early indications for May are that advertising revenues for the nationals will only fall by around 10% year-on-year.

The statement said: "The economic slowdown continues to impact the group and we remain cautious about the outlook. A combination of prudent cost-reduction measures, the introduction of cutting-edge IT systems driving new, more efficient ways of publishing, stable financing and relatively robust circulation revenue is, nevertheless, expected to deliver positive cash flow from our operations for 2009."

Trinity also maintained that it will not incur capital expenditure of more than £25m in 2009.