Ad revenues continued to dwindle in August at top U.S. newspaper publishers, in some cases by double digits, Media Post reported. The New York Times Co.'s advertising revenue dropped 14 percent to $110.6 million, while Media General reported a modest decline of 4.4 percent.

Most of the key publishers in the country reported a loss in July-August, including NYT Co., Media General, Gannett, McClatchy, Lee and Scripps. According to Deutsche Bank analyst David Clark, "industry trends softened across all categories" between the second quarter and the first two months of the third, which, he added, may lead to an even more dismal second half of the year.

“Based on the monthly results for GCI, MNI, NYT and MEG, we believe the trends have weakened for newspapers across the category spectrum in the third quarter,” wrote Clark, Media Post reported.

He estimated the medium's overall performance was sobering, as classifieds dropped 28 percent in the first two months of the third quarter, while retail and national were down 9.4 percent and 12.9 percent, respectively.

Overall total advertising plunged 17.2 percent, which caused the steepest quarterly drop in recent history, according to Media Post.

Based on data from the Newspaper Association of America, through the second quarter this year, total ad revenue has dropped for eight quarters straight in year-over-year comparisons. This means that “current losses are compounding two years of previous losses,” Media Post reported.

What's even worse is that the declines seem to be accelerating, from a 1.5 percent drop in the second quarter two years ago to an 8.6 percent drop in the same period of 2007, and 15.11 percent this year.