On Johnston Press's own measure of quoting pre-tax profit before non-recurring items, its profit figure fell 6.9% to £76.3m, marginally ahead of City expectations.
The company is a major force in regional newspapers and owns flagship titles such as The Scotsman and The Yorkshire Post. Despite the fall in newspaper circulations, its newspaper sales revenues grew 0.5% because of the offsetting impact of selective cover price increases.
The rate of decline in print advertising revenues slowed substantially from 9.2% to 2.9%, and overall advertising revenues fell 1.5%.
Digital revenues grew 33.5%, with unique users up 31% to 7.9m a month and page impressions up 40% to 76.2m a month.
Tim Bowdler, chief executive, said: "The month of July has seen a continuation of the improving month-on-month advertising trends in the UK.
"Costs remain under good control and new publishing initiatives, especially in the digital arena, continue to produce strong growth, albeit from a small base."
The group's comparatively high operating profit margin fell from 32.6% to 30.9%.
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