While seeing gains from online ads, newspaper publishers have reported worse-than-expected ad revenue numbers for February, reports The New York Times.

USA Today's revenue is down 14 percent. The New York Times Company's revenue is down six percent. The Tribune Co. and McClatchy both reported drops of five percent.

While some analysts warn not to draw conclusions from a single data point, the ad-revenue future for newspapers does not look bright. Younger readers coveted by advertisers are not reading print papers, and classifieds revenue is drying up due to problems in the housing market.

The news is better at the papers' online operations, where revenue rose 31.5 percent to $2.7 billion, according to industry stats. Unfortunately, that only accounts for just over five percent of all newspaper ad revenue. While online ad revenue continues to grow, it's so far not enough to counter the freefall in print revenue.