Johnston chief’s pledge on digital policy

The boss of Johnston Press pledged yesterday to “put digital at the heart” of the business as the UK’s second-largest regional newspaper group swung to a loss last year.

Chief executive Ashley Highfield, a former senior employee at Microsoft, said he wants the group’s web audience to equal its newspaper circulation as he outlined plans to relaunch all titles as integrated digital and print products.

Johnston, which counts The Scotsman and Yorkshire Post among its publications, posted a £143.8m loss in 2011, compared to a £16.5m profit the previous year, as the group wrote down the book value of its newspapers by more than £160m.

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Mr Highfield, who also announced a new lending deal with the group’s banks to take it through to September 2015, wants to scale back some daily newspapers to weekly publications as new web, mobile and iPad offerings are developed.

In a sign of developments to come, the group launched free football smartphone apps for 10 titles, which feature the latest stats, live match updates and team line-ups for local clubs.

The plans have met criticism in recent weeks from Conservative MP Louise Mensch as two Johnston daily newspapers in her constituency, the Northampton Chronicle and Echo and Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, will become weeklies from next month.

Newspaper publishers like Johnston Press and rival Trinity Mirror have been hit by lower spending on advertising, particularly as the Government has cut spending as part of an austerity drive aimed at keeping the budget deficit in check.

Trinity Mirror said last month that it had frozen its CEO’s pay this year after the company posted a sharp drop in yearly earnings and forecast a drop in sales in the first quarter.