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This article was published 12/5/2016 (1591 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE company that owns the Winnipeg Free Press, the Brandon Sun and a number of regional newspapers in Manitoba has reported a decline in revenue and profit for the first three months of 2016.

FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership said Wednesday revenues declined by 7.8 per cent, or $1.7 million, to $19.6 million during the quarter. That compared with an 11.7 per cent revenue drop in the final quarter of 2015. Net earnings also fell by 33.3 per cent to $800,000 from $1.2 million in the first quarter of last year.

FP Newspapers Inc., the publicly traded company that owns securities entitling it to 49 per cent of the distributable cash of FPLP, saw its net earnings decline to $300,000, or $0.036 per share from $400,000, or $0.058 per share, a year earlier.

The decline in revenue at FPLP was broadly based, with print advertising revenues down 9.7 per cent, display advertising revenues — the largest category of advertising revenue — down 8.9 per cent, classified advertising revenue down 14.9 per cent, flyer-distribution revenue down 8.1 per cent and digital revenue off by 33.9 per cent. The lone exception was print-circulation revenue, which was essentially unchanged.

Free Press publisher Bob Cox told FPLP’s annual meeting a number of cost-saving initiatives were implemented in the first quarter in response to declining revenues. Those initiatives are expected to reduce operating costs on an annualized basis by $2.2 million.

He said the initiatives included consolidating all of the Free Press’s newspaper-delivery operations at its Mountain Avenue location and introducing a voluntary layoff program. That program, combined with other departures, reduced staffing by about a dozen positions, which will result in an annual saving of about $1 million, he added.

FPLP chairman Ron Stern told the meeting that while the first-quarter financial results were disappointing, he is proud of the way the company’s newspapers and businesses are adjusting to the revenue challenges facing the newspaper industry.

"We’ve got new ideas that are being developed and will be rolled out to make our products even better, and we’ve got a number of new ideas for how we can do it even more efficiently."

Stern said the company also has "real hopes that there will be breakthroughs on the revenue side as we refocus our business."

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca