The Evening Standard saw a £19.6m loss before tax in its final year as a daily news operation, its 2023/24 accounts show.
The business says it has seen a “significant improvement” in its financial health since it went weekly in September and laid off half its editorial staff.
The year’s results nonetheless bring the paper’s total losses since proprietor Lord Evgeny Lebedev turned the paper free in 2010 to £149.4m
The accounts and those of parent company Lebedev Holdings said the proprietor has provided a letter of support “which expresses willingness to provide continued support to the group” as it restructures.
Shareholders provided loans worth £23m to Evening Standard Limited in the financial year ending in September and a further £6m of loans since then.
The directors said they were confident of Lebedev’s ability to continue supporting the enterprise but his continued funding is not guaranteed by contract, which in combination with the uncertain success of the restructure “may cast significant doubt on the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern”.
The last three months of the financial year covered a phasing out period for the daily Evening Standard, which the directors said had “delivered results in line with shareholder expectations, which equates to a significant improvement in year-on-year trading performance”.
The £19.6m loss represents a 5% decrease from the prior year when the company lost £20.6m.
Since the unveiling of the restructure plan in May “shareholder funding has been received on a regular basis each month”, which the directors said is set to continue to December 2027.
“To date, actual funding received since the adoption of the Transition Plan is circa £1m lower than planned which is largely driven by lower than anticipated restructuring costs.”
Staff were told last year that the company’s shareholders were not willing to provide extra money toward redundancy payoffs despite “widespread dismay” over proposed terms of statutory redundancy pay plus £1,000.
Asked subsequently whether this had been fair by London Centric, Lebedev said: “I believe so because I have supported this paper for the last ten years, those jobs wouldn’t exist if I wasn’t there.”
The redundancies have not yet shown up in the company accounts: the monthly average headcount supplied in the accounts in the 2024 financial year was 229 (of whom 216 worked in news and 13 in events), up by one from 2023.
Advertising sales represented 80% of company turnover in the 2023/24 financial year, the directors wrote, adding that the advertising market “continues to be in structural decline, which is reflected in the Company’s turnover, reducing to £23.5m” from £26.8m the year before.
Events revenue halved year-on-year from £1.4m to £708,000. At sister company ESTV Limited, whose channel London Live was closed in January and its licence sold to National World, broadcasting revenue declined year-on-year from £4.2m to £1.7m.
The Standard, now named The London Standard, has yet to announce a new editor since Dylan Jones, the paper’s leader for 18 months, stepped down in November.
Prior to Jones the Standard had gone without an editor-in-chief for 19 months.
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