| Type | Public limited company |
|---|---|
| Traded as | LSE: JPR |
| Industry | Newspapers |
| Founded | 1767 |
| Headquarters | Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom |
| Key people | Ian Russell (Chairman) John Fry (CEO) |
| Revenue | £398.1 million (2010) |
| Operating income | £54.9 million (2010) |
| Net income | £36.1 million (2010) |
| Website | www.johnstonpress.co.uk |
Johnston Press plc (LSE: JPR) is a newspaper publishing company headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland. Its flagship titles are The Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post; it also operates many other newspapers around the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man. It is the second-largest publisher of local newspapers in the UK. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index.
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The Johnston family has been involved in the printing business since 1767. It bought control of its first newspaper, the Falkirk Herald, in 1846. The company would remain headquartered in Falkirk for the next 150 years. The family publishing company was renamed F Johnston & Co Ltd in 1882, a title it would retain until it was floated on the London Stock Exchange as Johnston Press in 1988.[1] The company's first major acquisition came in 1970, when it took control of the Fife-based publishers Strachan & Livingston.[1] In 1978 it bought Wilfred Edmunds in Chesterfield, publisher of the Derbyshire Times and The Yorkshire Weekly Newspaper Group in Wakefield.[1]
The Company bought The West Sussex County Times in 1988, The Halifax Evening Courier in 1994 and the newspaper intests of EMAP plc in 1996.[1] Further expansion followed with Portsmouth & Sunderland Newspapers in 1999 and Regional Independent Media Holdings in 2002.[1]
The Company expanded into the Irish market in 2005 by purchasing Local Press Ltd, a company owned by 3i (£65 million),[2] the newspaper assets of Scottish Radio Holdings, known as Score Press with forty-five titles in Scotland and Ireland (£155 million),[3] and the Leinster Leader Group (€138.6 million).[4] The titles were then reorganised into three main holding companies: Derry Journal Newspapers (Counties Donegal and Londonderry), Johnston Publishing (NI) (everywhere else in Northern Ireland) and Johnston Press Ireland (along with four smaller companies everywhere else in the Republic).
The Company acquired Scotsman Publications in 2006.[5]
On 7 July 2011, NUJ-represented staff at three Johnston Press titles voted 100% in favour of taking strike action.[6] The affected titles were the Doncaster Free Press, the South Yorkshire Times, the Goole Courier and the Selby Times. The dispute stemmed from Johnston Press' announcement in June 2011 of plans to cut 18 jobs including two editors.[7]
Following the ballot results, and the failure to reach settlement with Johnston Press; staff walked out on indefinite strike on 15 July 2011.[8]
Despite the strike continuing for several weeks, Johnston Press' Chief Executive John Fry refused the NUJ's request for mediation through ACAS.[9]
Johnston Press went on to service notice of redundancy upon the South Yorkshire Times' editor Jim Oldfield on Monday 8 August 2011. This was despite circulation figures being substantially higher under Oldfield's tenure. Greame Huston, of the Doncaster Free Press is to take over management of the paper, becoming its Editor-in-chief.[10] This is despite Doncaster Free Press' circulation figures dropping under Huston's leaderships whilst the South Yorkshire Times had flourished and staved off serious circulation decreases under Jim Oldfield. As of 23 August 2011, the strike was in its sixth week.
The following is a partial list of British newspapers owned by the company:
In total, 22 titles are published in Northern Ireland, fourteen in the Republic and one in both:
Johnston Publishing (NI)DailyLocal (NI)
Free titles (NI)
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Derry Journal newspapersLocal (Derry Journal)Free titles (Derry Journal)
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Johnston Press Ireland
Kilkenny People LtdLimerick Leader Ltd
Nationalist Newspaper CoTallaght Publishing Ltd
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Johnston Press announced on 9 November 2010 that the company proposed to cease printing activities in Limerick at Leader Print Limited with effect from mid-December 2010 with the loss of 29 jobs. The company gave no indication where the Limerick Leader (Monday and Wednesday), the Limerick Chronicle (Tuesday) and two broadsheet papers on Wednesdays (County Limerick) and Thursdays (Limerick city) would be printed in future. Johnston Press withdrew the sale of its Irish regional newspapers in 2009 after failing to receive a sufficiently high bid.
On 5 January 2010, The Tallaght Echo was returned to the ownership of David Kennedy, one of the founders of The Echo back in 1980. After 25 years building the newspaper he sold it to the Leinster Leader who subsequently sold it to Johnston Press. For the previous 18 months, Kennedy had been in negotiations with Johnston Press to buy back the family business and finally secured the deal to take back control in January 2010, the year that saw the 30th anniversary of the paper.
The company owns the following websites, in addition to newspaper sites as above, and regionalised versions of these:
The company has been badly damaged financially by poor decisions made in investing in the Irish operation, leading to refinancing of loans and a major cost-cutting and job-shedding drive after it failed to get a buyer for expensive acquisitions there
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