Massive revenue decline as a result of global economic downturn is fast eroding media's advertising base, forcing major newspapers in the US to look for cost cutting measures.

The latest victim is the New York Times which told its print and web employees that non union staff would receive no pay raises next year, Forbes.com reported.

The announcement comes a day after Newsweek was reported to have been considering reducing staff and cutting print order for the magazine.

"Advertising revenues at both the paper and the website remain weak and the financial outlook for 2009 is daunting," the staff was told in an internal e-mail from Times' publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr, which Forbes.com claimed to have obtained.

In October, advertising revenues from its New York Times Media Group, which includes properties such as the 'Times' and the 'International Herald Tribune', dropped 15.3 per cent as compare to the same period last year, Forbes said.

At the time, its advertising revenue for the group was down 10.6 per cent over last year for a total of some USD 900 million, Forbes quoted the company as saying, as a result, the organisation has been aggressively trying to cut costs.

Earlier this month, the Times had announced that it was planning to borrow USD 225 million against its New Manhattan headquarters because of a cash flow squeeze.

In September, the Times had announced to close its wholesale newspaper distributor, City & Suburban, which delivered the Times and more than 200 other publications to newsstands and other locations in New York.

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