Regional publisher Newsquest has revealed a digital advertising and subscriptions boost – but recorded a slump in profit last year.

The company has published its accounts for 2022, revealing pre-tax profits of £27m, down from £45m the previous year.

The publisher used the report to highlight its growing digital strength, boasting it now has 65,000 paying subscribers online.

Newsquest also revealed almost half of its adveritsing revenue now comes from digital and renewed its attack on the BBC over the corporation’s perceived “encroachment” into the commercial regional news industry.

The report also contained a pledge to “take out inefficient costs” in order to “protect the company during these challenging times”.

During 2022, the company bought fellow regional publisher Archant and the report revealed the deal was worth £11.3m.

Turnover stood at £150m, a 6.1pc increase on 2021’s figure of £141m.

The report stated: “Newsquest has had particular success in transitioning its advertising business to digital with almost half of our advertising revenue coming from digital.

“Similarly, we continue to make good progress with our digital subscriptions strategy, launched only three years ago, and we now have over 65,000 paying subscribers to our digital content- this is in spite of the ongoing encroachment of the BBC which is now deploying even more of its licence fee to compete with and duplicate the output of commercial news publishers such as ourselves.”

The report went on to warn inflation had put “signifcant pressure” on the business to far this year, particularly on newsprint and energy costs.

It added: “Despite these inflationary head winds, the company remains positive about the opportunities for 2023 given the resilience of the business and skills of its teams to drive the necessary audience growth and deliver the value sought by our advertisers.

“The company will be competitive on pay reviews to make sure the employees delivering the results for the business are retained throughout the organisation, this can only be achieved by continuing to re-engineer the business to take out inefficient costs.

“These measures are essential to protect the company during these challenging times. We have strong local brands for local businesses to market their goods and services.”

A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC has worked constructively with local media publishers for years and already funds 165 reporter posts across the UK that supply commercial publishers with stories.

“Since the scheme launched, it has produced more than 350,000 original stories for in excess of 1,100 individual news brands.”