The New York Times Company has reported its July revenue declined 3.5 percent, but its Web site NYTimes.com still had a cheerful traffic growth from 12.53 million in June to over 14 million in July, securing its spot as the number one U.S. newspaper site, according to the figures released by Nielsen//Net Ratings.

Print advertising revenue continued to decrease, but both the circulation revenue and online advertising revenue grew four percent.

Rumors have circulated due to a recent article in the New York Post claiming the Times will shut down its TimesSelect service, but the company has had no comment, other than to state in its that the service has close to 225,000 paying customers, which means, by calculation, it earns some $10 million annually.

“The debate within the company is whether the newspaper could make more than that by opening up the TimesSelect pages that have basically put the newspaper's most popular columnists behind a pay wall, and that advertising sold on those pages would earn more than the subscriptions,” according to a followthemedia.com article.