Media employment levels were "slammed by the slumping newspaper industry,” falling to a 15-year low of 886,900 in December in the United States, AdAge.com reported Monday.

“Since media employment peaked in dot-com-infused 2000, media companies have eliminated one in six jobs (167,600),” according to AdAge.

The report pointed out that newspapers, TV and radio all had job cuts last year. The only media sectors seeing jobs added are magazine (up 400 jobs) and Internet media companies (up 9,200).

Internet media companies, which include search engines and Web portals, had a job increase of 13.4 percent last year. However, compared with the dot-com-bubble peak, the Internet-media employment still remained 31 percent below that level.

“The big problem is newspapers, which account for half (82,800) of media jobs lost since 2000. One in four newspaper jobs have disappeared since newspaper employment peaked in 1990,” AdAge.com reported.

Newspapers, which accounted for 50 percent of media jobs in U.S. in 1990, were down to only 38 percent last year, mostly due to heavy costs of printing and distribution, according to Editor & Publisher.