The £84m non-cash “impairment of publishing rights” essentially means the publisher does not believe the titles will return to positive growth.
More than 80% of the Sun’s losses, about £164m, were one-off charges mostly related to phone hacking.
They included £52m in fees and damages paid to civil claimants, double the £26m paid out in 2019, and a £26m in costs accounted for as “UK newspaper matters”.
“The company is exposed to libel claims in the ordinary course of business and vigorously defends against claims received,” News Group said.
It was not able to stem losses despite cutting sales and marketing costs by 40%, and cutting staff numbers from 605 to 546.
The titles managed to minimise the annual decline in revenue to £20m, with the £330m reported in 2019 falling to £310m last year.
A change in pretax losses from £67.8m to £201.4m means they almost tripled, rather than “more than tripling” as an earlier version said. »
