The overall decline resulted mainly from a drop in advertising revenue, which slipped 4.9% from $148 million to $140.8 million. This drop was due to continuing weakness in print advertising, which more than offset a 24.8% increase in digital ad revenue from $10.3 million to $12.9 million.
Total retail revenues (including both print and digital) slipped 4.4%, while national dropped 10.5% and classified revenues fell 4.7%.
Within the classified category, Lee said employment revenues ticked up 3.5%, while automotive fell 7.3% and real estate tumbled 18.5%, indicating continuing softness in two key sectors of the economy and traditional mainstays of newspaper ad revenue.
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The news from Lee comes not long after Gannett announced a 1.6% decline in total revenues, which fell from $1.39 billion in the second quarter of 2009 to $1.37 billion in the second quarter of 2010.
This was partly the result of a 6% decline in publishing revenues, which fell from $1.1 billion to $1 billion. Despite this decline, Gannett reported that net income rose 35.7% from $107.9 million to $146.5 million over the same period, thanks mostly to strict cost-control measures.