The latest victim of the unkind economic realities of online media and publishing is The New York Times. The American daily newspaper organization posted an overall revenue loss of 2.9 percent for the last quarter of 2010. This major setback was primarily brought by the decline of its advertising and circulation revenue, 3.1 percent and 3.6 percent respectively.

President and chief executive officer, Janet L. Robinson of The New York Times Company has detailed how key factors pulled down the organization’s finances, hence stalled growth. She noted, “The advertising marketplace was volatile during the quarter. The progress we made on the print advertising front in October and November was not sustained in December due to a combination of difficult year-over-year comparisons and advertiser caution about the economy and consumer spending. And although digital advertising remained strong and grew 11 percent, it could not fully offset the 7 percent decline in print advertising revenues in the fourth quarter.”

Robinson added, “We have remained focused on diversifying our revenues and strengthening our digital businesses. Advertising revenues from our digital products have become a much more significant part of our mix and made up 26 percent of the Company’s total advertising revenues in the fourth quarter.

It is not all that surprising to know that advertising came in as the prime contributor to the company’s rough financial period. Tom Foremski of SiliconAngle covered a story on how investor’s confidence is routed from NY Times to Demand Media. In essence, The Times’ influence is slowly decreasing as other online news niches have been dominating the market. Even Apple, makers of the iPhone and iPad, is planning to launch its own version of news and updates exclusively for iPad users in conjunction with its competitor conglomerate chief, Rupert Murdoch.  This daily digital newspaper will be called The Daily (iPad newspaper).

But it is not a grandslam defeat for The Times, as they kept the company websites and related digital products within the growth curve and pronounced a total digital revenue of $113.2 million or 11.0 percent.  Another media organization, News Corp also underwent a fiscal fiasco via revamps in MySpace, a case in which online investments didn’t pan out so well.