TRINITY Mirror's shares soared last night as the market reacted favourably to a cautiously optimistic outlook for the second half of the year.
Sly Bailey, chief executive of the newspaper group that owns the Daily Mirror and more than 140 regional newspapers, said she saw a gradual moderation in the rate of decline in revenues after reporting another slump in advertising and circulation.
The company has shut 22 titles since the start of the year and cut 900 jobs, bringing the headcount reduction to 1,800 in the past 18 months.
Advertising revenue from its regional arm fell 34.5 per cent to £104 million, coupled with a fall of 14 per cent drop at the group's national newspaper operation to £64.4m. The fall in national advertising slowed to 10 per cent in July. Regional ads fell 29 per cent in July.
The declines were broadly in line with those seen at rival Daily Mail & General Trust, which reported a 12 per cent fall in national advertising and a 33 per cent drop in regionals last week for the quarter to end-June.
Bailey admitted these were "unprecedented levels" but insisted the company was seeing a slowing in the rate of decline.
A statement said: "While advertising revenues have fallen to unprecedented levels due to the downturn, we have seen a marginal improvement in the rate of decline as we progressed through the period and this is expected to continue for the remainder of the year."
Overall first-half sales fell to £383m from £460m last year, as circulation revenues were also hit by aggressive price cuts from rivals. Pre-tax profit came in at £2.1m compared with a loss of £20.6m in the same period last year. The shares closed up 9p or 12.6 per cent at 80.5p.
