NEW YORK – New York Times Co reported lower quarterly profit and revenue on Wednesday as newspaper advertising revenue fell nearly 12 percent.

Second-quarter income from continuing operations fell 5.5 percent to $20.9 million, while earnings per share from continuing operations were flat at 15 cents.

Revenue fell 6 percent to $741.9 million. Analysts' average forecast was $753.9 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

“During the quarter, we saw the continued effect on our business of the U.S. economic slowdown and secular forces playing out across the media industry,” Chief Executive Janet Robinson said in a statement. “Print advertising continued to soften during the quarter, particularly in the classified areas.”

The Times' results are similar to those of other U.S. newspaper publishers such as USA Today publisher Gannett Co Inc and Tampa Tribune publisher Media General Inc, which are trying to reverse persistent ad revenue declines and make more money from their online businesses.

The Times' stock price has fallen 44 percent in the past year as investor disenchantment with newspapers has grown.

That is not as devastating as the declines of 80 percent or more that some publishers have experienced, but it has stoked questions about whether the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which controls the Times, would ever sell the company it has controlled for more than a century.

Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr earlier this year said the company was “not for sale.”

Second-quarter ad revenue fell 9.5 percent at New York Times Media Group, which includes the flagship New York Times newspaper. At its New England group, which includes the Boston Globe, ad revenue fell 15.1 percent. At its regional group, which includes the Times' other local papers, ad revenue fell 16 percent.

Internet revenue rose 12.8 percent to $91.3 million. That represented about 12.3 percent of the company's total revenue during the quarter, compared with 10.3 percent a year earlier.

Circulation revenue rose 2.5 percent.

Net income for the entire company fell 82 percent to $21.1 million. In the year-earlier quarter the company posted a gain from discontinued operations of $94 million.

(Reporting by Robert MacMillan; editing by John Wallace)