Trinity Mirror yesterday became the latest traditional media firm to scale back its investment in the internet when it announced the closure of several websites and the loss of 60 jobs.

The company, owner of the Mirror newspapers and the largest publisher of regional titles in Britain, has reduced its online spend from the £150m flagged 12 months ago to £90m in the next three years.

It is closing the icShowbiz and icSport websites and has abandoned the launch of lifestyle site icChoice. Trinity Mirror confirmed that talks have opened for the sale of its internet service provider, ic24, which has 240,000 active users.

The shake-up is part of a wider review of the group formed from the merger of Trinity and Mirror Group more than 18 months ago. The review began in November and will see the sale of the magazines and exhibitions division which includes specialist medical and housebuilding titles. PA Sporting Life which comprises Sportinglife.com and Totalbet will also be sold.

Analysts estimate the magazines will fetch around £50m, Sportinglife another £25m and ic24 about £12m.

Philip Graf, the chief executive, said Trinity Mirror had learned a lot from its experiences with the internet and underlined the group's commitment to a network of regional websites using the "ic" brand.

He said: "Some of the early predictions of the shift of revenues from newspapers to the internet were clearly overdone. We had thought it would be enough to be a top five player but with the advertising market online not as big as some had anticipated you really need to be top three."

Mr Graf added: "We are still very confident of the opportunity provided by the internet where we have a distinctive capability, like the regional network."

The online division, which employs around 400 people, is forecast to record revenues of around £25m this year and will have 12 regional sites up by the end of the month.

Despite the retrenchment, Trinity Mirror pleased investors with a strong set of full year results for 2000. Pretax profits before internet losses of £42m were 12.2% higher at £196m. Revenues were 5.3% better and just exceeded £1bn.

The company also provided positive news of the present trading environment. Mr Graf said advertising revenues across the national titles were 9% higher in the first two months of the year, while the regional titles were 7% higher.

The shares climbed 27.5p to 486p.