• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, February 2, 2012

More weak results from the newspaper industry this week, with the New York Times Co.’s announcement that total revenues declined 2.8% to $643 million in the fourth quarter of 2011. This is the sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue declines for NYTCO, which last saw revenue growth in the second quarter of 2010.

The latest drop was attributed mostly to a continuing decline in advertising revenue, which fell 7.1% to $358.5 million. This included a 7.8% drop in print advertising revenue and a 4.9% decline in digital ad revenue.

Declines were spread fairly evenly across all the major categories, with national advertising revenue decreasing 4% to $199.8 million; retail down 6% to $82.9 million; and classifieds tumbling 10.5% to $40.9 million. Within the classified category, help wanted fell 3.7% to $8.4 million, real estate plunged 17.3% to $13 million, and automotive was down 10.5% to $8.5 million.

For the full year, NYTCO revenues slipped 2.9% from $2.39 billion to $2.32 billion, due again mostly to the decline in advertising revenue, from $1.3 billion in 2010 to $1.22 billion in 2011, a 6.1% drop.

A bright spot on the balance sheet was circulation revenues, which have been boosted by the company’s new online paywall strategy for its flagship newspaper. In the fourth quarter, total circulation revenues were up 4.7% to $241.6 million, while for the full year they increased 1.1% to $941.5 million. 

The flagship New York Times was clearly responsible for most of this increase, as the New York Times media group saw circulation revenues jump 7.9% in the fourth quarter, to $183 million, while the company’s New England media group and regional media group, recently sold to Halifax Media, both saw total circulation revenues decline. 

As noted, this wasn’t the first round of bad news from the newspaper industry. On Monday, Gannett announced that total revenues fell 5.1% from $1.46 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010 to $1.39 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011, attributing the drop to a weak print advertising demand, as well as the absence of political advertising associated with the 2010 midterm elections. (The latter mostly impacting the company's broadcast TV operations.)

In the fourth quarter, Gannett’s publishing division revenues declined 5.3% to $1.01 billion, as total advertising revenues slipped 7.1% to $670.7 million. Like other big newspaper publishers, ad revenue declines were spread across all the major categories, with retail down 5.8%, national down 9.1% and classifieds down 8.4% in the fourth quarter.

Within the classifieds category, automotive was down 6.5%, employment slipped 2.6% and real estate fell 12.9%.