• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 14, 2006

The New York Times Co.'s Web-related businesses, including About.com, Internet sites for newspapers and TV stations, and digital archives, accounted for $62.2 million in revenue--7.5 percent of the company's total--in the first three months of this year, the company said Thursday.

That figure represents an increase of around 72 percent from the first quarter of last year, when the Internet businesses generated $36.1 million, or 4.5 percent of total company revenue.

Excluding About.com, which took in $18.18 million in the first quarter, revenue from Internet businesses grew by 23.9 percent year-over-year. The Times Co. purchased About.com from Primedia in March 2005 for $410 million.

Despite the strong online performance, net income at the New York Times Co., decreased to $35 million, or 24 cents a share, from last year's $111 million, or 76 cents a share. The drop was partly because last year's profits included a gain from the sale of the company's headquarters; other factors included a charge related to layoffs, high newsprint costs and poor results from The Boston Globe, part of the company's New England Media Group. That group--which also includes The Worcester Telegram & Gazette--took in $101.5 million ad revenue, which represented a 7.2 percent decline from last year.

Overall ad revenues at the company grew 3.9 percent to $554.6 million; the bulk of that came from the New York Times Media Group--which includes The New York Times and International Herald Tribune; that group saw ad revenues of around $307.8 million, marking a 2.1 percent increase from last year. The Regional Media Group--including papers like the Sarasota Herald-Tribune of Sarasota, Fla. and The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, Calif.--grew ad revenues 5.3 percent to $96 million.