Evening Standard posts £17m loss but says digital transformation ‘already showing positive results’

Evening standard newspapers on the streets, illustrating a story about the paper proposing to go from daily to weekly. — Evening Standard newspapers on the streets. Picture: Reuters

The Evening Standard has reported a £17m loss after Covid-19 more than halved its revenues between April and September last year.

Accounts for Evgeny Lebedev’s Evening Standard Ltd, filed with Companies House this week, show the London newspaper’s annual turnover for the year to 27 September 2020 was down 31% year-on-year to £44.1m.

The Standard said revenues in the second half of the financial year, from April to September, were at just 40% of their prior-year level as lockdown hit its ad-based commuter-focused model.