business

NEW YORK -- Advertising revenues at U.S. newspapers edged down 0.3 percent last year as gains in online revenues weren't enough to compensate for a worsening downturn in print ads.

The Newspaper Association of America, an industry group, reported Thursday that overall print advertising fell 1.7 percent last year to $46.6 billion, outweighing a 31.5 percent increase in online advertising to $2.7 billion.

The growth rate of newspapers' online advertising was about the same as last year but slightly lre time on the Internet.

Many newspapers are expanding their online businesses rapidly, but Internet advertising still made up only 5.4 percent of their total advertising revenues last year, according to the NAA figures.

The pace of decline in print advertising at newspapers accelerated during 2006, with total print ad dollars falling 3.7 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, following declines of 2.6 percent in the third quarter and 0.2 percent in the second quarter. Print advertising edged up 0.4 percent in the first quarter.

Among print categories, the largest declines in the fourth quarter came in classified advertising, a longtime cash cow for the newspaper business which has become threatened by online rivals such as Craigslist.

Overall newspaper classified advertising fell 7.1 percent in the quarter, with recruitment dropping 13.7 percent, automotive advertising falling 11 percent and real estate falling 2.3 percent. All other classified ads edged up 0.9 percent.

In an effort to build up their online classified ad business, many newspapers have forged alliances with online job-search businesses such as Monster Worldwide Inc. and Yahoo Inc.'s HotJobs. Also, the three largest newspaper companies, Gannett Co., Tribune Co. and McClatchy Co. co-own CareerBuilder, a major online and print help-wanted advertising business.