Newspaper advertising revenue is expected to drop up to 30 percent for some papers for the first quarter of 2009, the largest drop in decades, according to industry executives and analysts, The New York Times reported.

First quarter results for U.S. newspapers are due out later this week, but those industry insiders who have a had an opportunity to look at 2009's first economic statistics have said that even the most drastic initial forecasts did not predict the slump that the industry has encountered.

Edward Atorino, a media analyst at the Benchmark Company, told The New York Times he predicts a decline "somewhere in the mid-20s," based on the warning signs of the recent "furloughs, the pay cuts, the layoffs."

John Morton, an independent newspaper analyst, agreed, telling The New York Times that major papers will be the hardest hit, "from what I'm hearing, I suspect 30 percent won't be too unusual for the bigger papers."

Gannett Company is one of the only major newspaper owners to comment on the decline. Gracia Martore, executive vice president and chief financial officer last month revealed a 30 percent decline in 2009 ad revenue. The drop was even more significant at flagship paper USA today.

As part of its bankruptcy filing, Sun-Times Media Group, disclosed its initial 2009 budget with an ad revenue decline of 18 percent. This had been altered to 30, The New York Times reported.

"This is far worse than anything any of us has seen," an executive at a major newspaper company told The New York Times. "We can keep cutting, but we need this to start to bottom out."

Small papers generally fared better than large ones, though they also saw a sharp loss of revenue, experts say. In markets like Michigan and Florida, even some smaller papers have fared as poorly as the big papers, Morton told The New York Times.