Gannett, the United State's largest newspaper group, saw a 7 percent decline in overall revenue in May, compared to last year, while Lee Enterprises saw a 1.7 percent revenue decline and McClatchy's revenue fell 10.4 percent.

By category, Ganett's advertising revenues showed where the trouble could be coming from: local advertising is down 6.3 percent, classifieds are down 8 percent, real estate down 9 percent, employment down 9.6 percent, automotive down 13 percent and national ads down 5.4 percent.

Lee's online advertising revenue jumped 60.2 percent in May, compared with the same month last year, but after being combined with advertising revenue losses on the print side, the overall revenue decline is at 1.7 percent. Print retail advertising at Lee was down 4 percent, classifieds declined 5.6 percent, employment fell 12.4 percent, automotive was down 10.5 percent, and real estate 9.9 percent.

An 11.5 percent drop in advertising revenues was a major factor in a 10.4 dip in overall revenues for McClatchy. Gary Pruitt, McClatchy's chairman and chief executive officer said classified ads, especially in the real estate categories, were to blame for the low revenues.

“While real estate was a significant source of revenue growth last year, the real estate boom has since turned sour and as a result our real estate advertising revenues have declined, most notably in our California and Florida newspapers,” he said.

Pat Talamantes, McClatchy's chief financial officer, said the group has reduced debt dramatically through asset sales. “As a result, our debt balance at the end of May was $2.7 billion, down $2 billion since the Knight Ridder acquisition closed ... we expect to reduce debt by approximately $600 million to $700 million over the next 18 months” through “several other de-leveraging transactions related to the sale of fixed assets and real property.”