• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, December 5, 2011

Digital revenues are a bright spot for newspaper publishers, as virtually the only advertising category to see growth in recent quarters -- but they remain a fairly small part of the business, and even more ominously, are failing to keep pace with Internet advertising overall. In the third quarter of 2011 newspapers took in $733 million in online advertising revenues, according to the latest figures from the Newspaper Association of America. That's about 13.2% of total advertising revenues of $5.56 billion. And it's just 6.2% more than the third quarter of 2010, when online ad revenues came to $690 million. That compares to an overall growth rate of 22% for online advertising in general, per the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The Q3 online figure for newspapers also represents a slowdown from previous growth rates of 10.6% in the first quarter and 8% in the second quarter.