‘Mirror’ group in deep depression, but against full paywall

Trinity Mirror, the publisher of the Daily Mirror as well as 120 regional papers in the UK, is poised to launch its first paid-for apps for tablet devices, including the iPad, after reporting a slump in revenue and a poor prognosis that sent its shares crashing on Friday.

The move will be followed by an online payment system for specialist news on some of the websites serving its regional newspapers, Sly Bailey, the chief executive of the group, said. At the same time, she showed no real faith in the 'paywall' system for general publications.

Bailey said the company aimed to start offering advertisers services traditionally provided by marketing agencies such as web design, search engine optimisation, social media strategy and online PR.

But she maintained that Daily Mirror's belief was that readers have no interest in a full paywall model for newspaper content, though the publisher was close to a number of launches of pay products to support its ad-funded strategy.

"Consumers are showing pretty much zero propensity for [paying for] general news content on the web, on a national or regional basis," she said. "We have no plans to introduce paywalls on our sites".

Moves by the group to slash costs sent underlying profits up 40 per cent to £101.5 million in the year to 2 January. But the news was overshadowed by a drop in revenues, down 6.9 per cent on an underlying basis to £710.6 million, and as the group admitted cost-cutting would be offset by inflation and wider economic woes. Shares in Trinity lost a fifth of their value after the results.