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 acquired the newspaper from the publisher of The Independent for a total of GBP24.0 million and on Friday, Johnston Press said the publication has performed well since then, boosted by the EU referendum.

The continued growth in readers of the 'i' newspaper has beaten management expectations since April. Last week's sales show daily circulation was "consistently" over 300,000 copies, peaking at 319,000 on June 29.

Notably, the advertising revenue during that same week reached the highest it has been since the acquisition was completed, Johnston Press said.

"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.

Putting that into perspective, average daily circulation in the month before Johnston Press acquired the 'i' newspaper was 270,182 copies.

Johnston Press said there was also a "record amount" of traffic to the 'i' newspaper website, inews.co.uk, last week - breaking the 1.0 million page views per week barrier for the first time after hitting 1.7 million page views during the week.

The highest amount of page views in a single day was on June 29, when it hit 434,431 views.

"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.

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

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