US newspaper industry continues the decline - they need to grab hold of the Internet!

The US newspaper industry is likely to face a "somber" second half of the year, with circulation and advertising revenue remaining under pressure, according to an analyst's report released on today.

The report casts doubt on any hopes of a major recovery for an industry that has seen share prices fall by 15% in the last 12 months amid declining readership and a migration of advertising dollars to the Internet.

And it will not get better any time soon - for as younger readers grow, newspaper readership will merely decline further. Plus, the trend towards consuming news on mobile phones still has not kicked in. But in the next couple of years it will.

Newspaper groups need to grab hold of web based business models like a drowning man grabs a life line.