Monday 08 October 2018 8:30 am | Updated: Tuesday 21 May 2019 4:24 pm

Daily Mirror owner Reach sees like-for-like revenues drop as squeeze on circulation and print advertising continues

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The owner of the Daily Mirror newspaper Reach today reported another like-for-like fall in group revenue due to lower circulation and advertising revenues.

In a trading update, Reach said that in the third quarter, though total revenue rose 21 per cent due to its recent acquisition of the Express & Star, on a like-for-like basis revenue dropped seven per cent.

This was on the back of circulation revenues falling four per cent, while print ad revenues took a huge 20 per cent hit.

On the Express & Star, Reach said it had made good progress on integrating the business and expected to remain on track to deliver savings of £2m in 2018 and at least £20m by 2020.

Simon Fox, chief executive, said:

I am pleased with the progress being made on the integration of Express & Star and remain confident that we will deliver at least £20m of annual synergy savings by 2020. Our continued focus on tightly managing costs and driving digital revenue continues to provide confidence that performance for the year will be in line with market expectations.

It follows Reach divesting 100 per cent interest in The Communicator Corporation, an email marketing business, which it sold for £7.6m.

When it released its half-year results back in July, Reach reported a non-cash impairment charge of £150m due to a challenging outlook for its regional business.