Publisher, Trinity Mirror, has published its annual results today showing operating profit up 2.5% (£107.1m), but revenue falling 7% (to £706.5m), its board have also talked up its controversial “One Trinity Mirror” restructure.
These are the first end of year results under new chief executive, Simon Fox, who said that in the first 6 months of his role he had implemented a “flatter and more efficient management structure, that releases the full potential of our journalists across the country and harnesses our audience reach.”
He continued: “We have therefore changed the management and organisational structure with the creation of a single Publishing division which combines the former Nationals and Regionals publishing operations. The new division, which is headed by Mark Hollinshead as chief operating officer, ensures that editorial, advertising and all support functions operate as efficiently as possible across all of the Group’s print and digital operations.
“As a consequence of the new management structure, Georgina Harvey, the former managing director of the regionals division and Nick Fullagar, the former director of corporate communications, left the business.”
Of the One Trinity Mirror concept, Fox stated that while “our regional journalists are at the scene first and are best placed to provide context and detail” to breaking stories, “their content was often not being used by our national titles so we are introducing closer working between the national and regional titles, with more content being shared across all of Trinity Mirror’s newspapers and digital platforms.
“Equally, content which has little or no directly local relevance (travel features; real life stories; motoring; film and entertainment reviews) was being produced many times across multiple locations.”
He said that a “more joined-up approach” across publishing and advertising would be more cost effective and result in “higher quality content for our national and regional readers and a better service for advertisers.”
The Group is looking to fight against the decline in print and the trend for advertisers to spend more on digital, by implementing a number of initiatives in its print editions. These include “editionisation” as seen by splitting the Manchester Evening News into North and South editions; weekend editions with centrally produced content, such as TV guides; hybrid editions, using combined paid-for and free to “ensure advertiser reach in our key metropolitan centres; and the redesign of a number of titles during 2013.
It will also be investing £3m in digital as it reorganises its newsrooms for the “digital age.”
“We have embedded digital specialists into all our newsrooms and increasingly all reporters will be equally happy live blogging; tweeting; using social media and using pictures and video as well as words,” stated Fox.
Digital revenues across the group grew by £3.2m to £40.8m.
