Polish media group Agora announced on Thursday that newspaper advertising spending is slowing 3 to 5 percent in the second half, a trend it expects to continue for the next few months, Reuters reported.

Agora owns Poland's largest daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, and had originally forecast the newspaper advertising sector to increase up to 5 percent in 2008. Andrzej Szymanski, a Warsaw-based analyst with BZ WBK, told Reuters that the current ad market climate could either “hover” at the same level, or it could lead to a drop in net profit.

“The market cooling has hit the company very fast. One could expect a slowdown in TV ads next year,” Szymanski told Reuters.

Last year, Agora earned about 100 million zlotys (US$38.8 million). It has a circulation of nearly 500,000 daily, up more than 3 percent last year.

Agora said in a statement that “the negative trend (in newspaper advertising) from the summer holiday season remained in September and translates into a continuation of a similar trend in the coming months,” Reuters reported.

In other news, Gazeta Wyborcza on Thursday won the annual 2008 World Young Reader Newspaper of the Year award, the World Association of Newspapers announced.

“Gazeta Wyborcza has made it clear that it is a leader for not only Europe, but for the world in engaging young people effectively on multiple platforms in the important issues of the day,” the panel's international judges stated.