The Baltimore Sun Media Group on Wednesday announced an agreement to print The Washington Times beginning in September, which will help The Sun offset some of its advertising revenue declines, the paper reported Thursday.

The Times, with 100,000 copies produced a day, plans to shut down its printing plant in Washington, and transfer the work to The Sun's Port Covington printing plant, known as Sun Park.

It will become Sun Park's biggest commercial customer, boosting its production by one-fourth, said to Judy Berman, BSMG's senior vice president of marketing, according to The Sun. Berman mentioned more staff will be added at the printing plant, but neither specifics nor dollar amounts of the deal were given.

“The agreement is a significant expansion of our commercial printing operations here at BSMG, allowing us to leverage our existing infrastructure to grow revenue,” Sun Publisher Timothy E. Ryan stated in a memo. “Growing alternative revenue streams, including commercial printing and delivery agreements, is a key part of our strategy to win in this competitive environment.”

The deal just came two days after Boscov's department store, one of The Sun's main advertisers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and announced plans to close its anchor stores in three local malls, The Sun reported.

Besides The Sun, BSMG also publishes 30 community newspapers and magazines, and owns more than 50 commercial printing contracts with several customers including the New York Post and the New York Daily News.

The BSMG has been delivering The Washington Times to retail locations in the Baltimore area for over seven years and to home subscribers since 2004.

The Sun Media Group, owned by Tribune Co., has just cut 100 jobs to reduce the size and staff of all of the company's newspapers. Tribune Co. is experiencing high debt and rising production costs at a time when the industry is facing a sharp drop in revenue as more advertising migrates to the Internet, The Sun reported.