Reading, UK – 18 January 2006 -- Atex Group Limited has today announced that Johnston Press plc (www.johnstonpress.co.uk), currently the UK’s fourth largest newspaper publisher, has successfully gone live in half of its regions with its new Atex Matrix (www.atex.com) circulation solution. The balance of Johnston Press sites is on schedule to go live later this year. “Managing our group’s circulation more effectively will provide us, as well as our customers, with significant benefits,” says Martin Simpson, Group IT Project Manager, Johnston Press. “With our previously disparate systems we simply did not have the collated circulation information available to fully leverage the strength of the group. We worked with Atex configuring the Matrix Subscriptions solution so that it precisely meets our group-wide needs. “We can already provide our circulation and advertising sales staff with much more information about readers, enabling them to precisely target advertising and inserts for our customers. “In addition, by integrating Matrix with our advertising systems, we can check whether an advertiser is a subscriber, and thereby build a better understanding of each local market, and whenever possible save dual input of customer details. Soon we will be able see at a glance how many newspapers we have delivered to a particular retail customer across all or any of our eight regions, or have delivered to one of its individual stores.” To date, the Matrix Newstrade circulation management solution is live at Johnston Press’ East Midlands Division based in Peterborough; Northern Division based in Leeds; South Midlands Division based in Northampton and North East Division based in Sunderland. Meanwhile the East Midlands and Northern Divisions also have Matrix Paid Direct subscriber modules in operation. At Johnston Press, Matrix will manage the distribution of approximately four million free weekly newspapers and four million paid titles, with copy sales accounting for 15% of total revenue. The 250-seat solution will allow Johnston Press’ customers to pay online, start and stop delivery on line, and even use SMS messaging from their mobile phone, providing more convenience and a better service. “I congratulate Martin and the project teams at Johnston Press and Atex for their exemplary planning and the enthusiastic way in which all involved have worked together to implement this important project on-time and within budget,” comments David Hall, Atex CEO, EMEA. “Matrix incorporates features that support subscriber as well as vendor management, providing publishers with the advantages of enhanced stock and product management, improved process automation, reduced costs plus significantly improved customer service. With its single file per customer, Matrix will ensure that a customer receives only one invoice from the company, on which newspapers received or returned are clearly identified,” adds Martin Simpson.