Johnston Press PLC Share News (JPR)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Johnston Press PLC Friday said the 'i' newspaper has grown its readership ahead of management expectations since the company acquired the publication back in April, delivering strong increases to advertising revenue and online traffic.

Johnston Press shares were trading 6.3% higher on Friday morning at 14.88 pence per share, but the stock is still down by more than 70% since the start of 2016.

The 'i' newspaper was launched by its original owners back in 2010 as a spin-off from The Independent newspaper before being sold to regional press group Johnston Press earlier this year for a total of GBP24.0 million.

Russian millionaire Evgeny Lebedev revealed the Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers would both close their print editions at around the same time it sold the 'i' newspaper to Johnston Press as concerns heightened over the future of print media.

Those concerns were also exacerbated by the failure of 'New Day', the newest print publication to be created since the 'i' newspaper, after it had to pulled only nine weeks after it was launched by London-listed Trinity Mirror PLC.

However, the performance of the 'i' newspaper has significantly improved since being taken over by Johnston Press this year, partly boosted by a rise in readers during the EU referendum debate and the subsequent Brexit vote.

The 'i' newspaper circulated around 270,182 copies each day in the final month of ownership by Lebedev, but that has increased significantly since Johnston Press took the publication over after the company reported an 11% lift in readership on Friday.

Johnston Press said daily circulation was "consistently" over 300,000 copies per day over the last week, peaking at 319,000 copies on the first Friday after Brexit, which, more importantly, pushed the newspaper's advertising revenue during that same week to its highest level since being acquired.

In April, the first month of ownership by Johnston Press, the 'i' newspaper reached peak daily circulation of 297,849 copies, an immediate lift from the previous month before the purchase was completed and that upward trend has continued.

"These figures show a further increase from the week of the referendum, indicating a continued desire for impartial and informative journalism, highlighting the vital role that newspapers play around major milestones for the country," said the company.

More impressively, Johnston Press has managed to build a website for the 'i' newspaper completely from scratch in less than three months and traffic has already reached significant levels after comfortably breaching 1.0 million page views per week already.

Online page views reached 1.7 million in the last week and the highest amount of page views on a single day hit 434,431 on the first Sunday after the EU referendum result.

"Since the website was only launched 10 weeks ago on April 14, management are encouraged by this strong start," said Johnston Press.

"Notwithstanding the referendum, which has evidently been beneficial for newspaper groups in general, i's circulation and readership has steadily increased under the ownership of Johnston Press and editorship of Oliver Duff," said the company.

The improved performance from the 'i' newspaper will be welcome to shareholders following the fall in revenue from the other parts of the business earlier this year. Excluding the 'i' newspaper, revenue in the 17 weeks from January 3 to April 30 declined by 14% year-on-year while advertising revenue had fallen by 17%.

Soon after purchasing the 'i' newspaper, Johnston Press sold the titles it circulated in the Isle of Man to local newspaper publisher Tindle Newspapers Ltd for GBP4.3 million as it realigned it resources toward better growth opportunities, offloading the Isle of Man Examiner, Isle of Man Courier, Max Independent and www.iomtoday.co.im.

By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance

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