The publisher of the Times and the Sunday Times has slashed its annual losses by tens of millions of pounds to just under £12m, according to financial filings for the year to 3 July 2011.
Times Newspapers Limited, the parent company of the Times and Sunday Times, reported a pre-tax loss of £11.6m for the 53 weeks to 3 July 2011 in a filing to Companies House.
This is just a quarter of the £45m pre-tax loss reported for the same period in 2010 – and a fraction of the £87.7m loss in 2009 – and was attributed to a "partial recovery" in the economic climate.
TNL's revenue grew by 2.3% to £401.7m, with income from circulation increasing as a result of cover price increases on the Times and Sunday Times. The company added it now has a relatively low exposure to classified revenues, less than 15% of total income.
However, the company reported that after the financial year ended it incurred costs of £9.3m.
Editorial staff costs were £54.5m, about £2m more than the previous year, as the average number of journalists employed dropped by 66 year on year to 542. In October, after the period ended, the Times and Sunday Times announced plans to cut at least 150 editorial positions.
Directors were paid £6.6m, about £1.5m more than in 2010, with total payments for "loss of office" £1.2m. It is not clear which directors were paid by the company; during the financial year their numbers included James Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks, Times editor James Harding and Sunday Times editor John Witherow.
TNL, which confirmed that it made no political contributions during the year, saw its operating loss shrink from £42.4m to £9.5m.
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