• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, January 15, 2016

Postmedia Network, owner of the National Post and Toronto Sun, and Canada’s biggest newspaper publisher, saw total revenues tumble 13.1% from $169.5 million to $147.4 million in Canadian dollars (or from around $116.7 million to $101.5 million in U.S. dollars).

That figure excludes the impact of the acquisition of the Sun Media properties from Quebecor Media.

Contributing to this decline, print advertising revenues plunged 17.6% or $16.4 million. (All figures are in Canadian dollars.) Print circulation revenues fell 6.7% or $3.2 million. Digital revenues, generally a bright spot for newspaper publishers, also slipped 5.7% or $1.4 million, again when the Sun Media acquisition is excluded.

With revenues falling by double digits, Postmedia is stepping up its previously announced cost-cutting efforts.

In July 2015, the company vowed to reduce expenses by $50 million by the end of 2017, but following the latest results, it announced its intention to increase savings by $30 million, for a total $80 million. It is also moving up the deadline for the first round of cost cuts, targeting $50 million, to the third quarter of 2016.

Postmedia also carries around $670 million in debt, a good deal of it denominated in U.S. dollars. That adds to the company’s woes, as the U.S. dollar has strengthened against its Canadian counterpart. In December, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Postmedia’s debt, warning it may be “unsustainable.”

Much of the debt was assumed in its acquisition of Sun Media from Quebecor for $316 million in October 2014. With the acquisition, Postmedia gained control of 175 English-language newspapers, specialty publications and digital properties, including The Toronto Sun, The Ottawa Sun, The Winnipeg Sun, The Calgary Sun and The Edmonton Sun, as well as The London Free Press and free 24-hour dailies in Toronto and Vancouver.