Earnings Season - AH Belo is in the weeds with Lee

More bad news in earnings season. AH Belo (AHC) just reported their earnings along with a massive buyout offer for about 15% of the workforce. However, the worst news isn't stated in the press release or in either of two long missives turned out by their CEO, but is in an article in one of their own papers.

The money line states that Internet revenue was down 12% for the quarter compared to a year ago.

Uh. Oh. The growth engine has stalled.

That's the same issue as Lee, but even more extreme. AH Belo is both part of the Yahoo consortium and Classified Ventures, which is relevant because these are the types of efforts that have been undertaken to usher in the age of the Internet for newspaper companies. Lee is only part of the Yahoo deal, not Classified Ventures. From all external measures, AH Belo is jumping into the industry transformation, but is still having issues with Internet revenue.

The answer thus far is a slash and burn. They've set out a goal to double Internet revenue by 2011, but with this setback that might be quite a lofty goal.