Johnston Press's trading update shows local ads more or less flatlining, with some decreases in the rate of decline - not a great advertisement for the local press, but reasonably robust, certainly when compared to TV ad performance.
But the group managed a 35 percent increase in online ads. Still a small part of the total - but growing very strongly. And this is from a traditional media player which, actually, I don't rate all that highly on its web sites - a follower rather than a leader (where say the Manchester Evening News is a real innovator).
Some investors have been complaining that whereas Trinity Mirror has been buying up advertising websites, Johnston Press has kept its powder dry. Actually I'm not sure that's a bad thing. The risk with the Trinity Mirror deal is that it will end up sending all the ad business to the property sites, draining its local paper websites of revenue. (And that's apart from the risk of overpaying.)
So JP still looks quite attractively valued. But from the statement, it looks as if it's still been getting growth from property ads - which I'd expect to do much worse next year. So you ought still to price in a decline in earnings for the next financial year.
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