Northcliffe Media suffers advertising chill in January with 40 per cent decline

Advertising revenues at Northcliffe Media, the regional arm of the Daily Mail & General Trust plunged by 40 per cent in January, according to a trading update, MediaGuardian and Press Gazette report today.
The figures show how tough the advertising market is for regional newspapers in the current economic downturn.
DMGT's national newspaper advertising revenues for January were down 23 per cent on the same month last year.
The company said Northcliffe Media, had two very slow weeks after the new year, resulting in advertising revenues for January being 40 per cent down on last year.
Peter Williams, DMGT's finance director, said the bad weather was a factor in the poor performance of the newspaper operation at the start of 2009.
"January has certainly been a tough month, it started incredibly slowly [and] just as activity looked to be turning more to normal we have been hit by atrocious weather," he told MediaGuardian.
Press Gazette quotes Williams on possible further redundancies as saying: "The only thing we can say is we are certainly in consultation in a number of places, mainly in our regional newspapers. We can't say any more about that.
"There are further reductions being contemplated in the New Year. I'm afraid a lot depends on the trading environment. We're inevitably looking at our cost base."