Johnston Press, owner of The Scotsman titles, the Falkirk Herald and the Yorkshire Post, posted another loss for the year, but saw its underlying operations improve.

The London-based company reduced its pre-tax loss from £291.4 million to £23.9m and cut its debt from £302m to £184.6m.

Group revenue continued to slide, down a further 7.3% from £290m to £268.8m, although total underlying revenue of £265.9m declined 4.4% for the period, reducing the rate of decline from 5.2% in 2013 and 7.4% in 2012.

Total advertising revenue was down 4.7% to £165.7m, print advertising declined 8.7% to £136.9m while digital revenues were up 20%.

The employment category led the way with revenue growth of 3.4%, becoming the first to reach the overall digital tipping point.  Newspaper sales revenue was down 4.8% from £81.8m to £77.9m.