There are a couple reasons why ad dollars slowed so severely:

The key drag on ad results for a number of these companies was a significant pullback by local retailers, which account for more than half of ad revenue at many local papers. The uneasy economy and the longer-term shift of ad dollars online continue to play a big role, analysts and executives say. Another factor is the emergence of daily-deal sites led by Groupon Inc., which have siphoned at least some ads away from papers, said Craig Huber, a senior analyst at Access 342, an independent stock-research company.

See that Groupon lovers? Because you can’t pay full price for a month of Subway foot longs, the newspaper industry is dying. Shame on you.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Publishers will notify people today and we will make every effort to reach everyone by end of day. It is important to note that these decisions do not reflect individual performance and we thank and respect those employees for their work. We will do everything we can to help them and to minimize the impact on our other employees going forward. In an effort to reduce the number of people being let go, there will be furloughs in the coming months but they will be limited only to those on the USCP corporate payroll who make over a certain salary. You will be notified by your publisher if you are among this group.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

AgencySpy: Advertising industry trade Creativity-Online has decided to erect a pay wall.

AdAge: Advertising Age has a new executive editor, Abbey Klaassen, who is replacing Jonah Bloom, who is leaving to join business-to-business blog network Breaking Media.

BusinessJournalism.org: American Journalism Review is cutting its print schedule from six down to four issues a year. Add that to today’s news about E&P‘s closure, and it’s been a very sad day for journalism trades.

Washington Business Journal: In its predictions for next year, Gannett Co. Inc. signaled that it will probably only require a few job cuts.

MediaDailyNews: Nielsen reports that ad spending fell 11.5 percent from January to September this year, compared to last year. Spending on national magazine ads dropped 21.4 percent, national newspaper ads were down 21.6 percent and b-to-b’s saw ads decline 33.1 percent. Sunday supplements saw the greatest ad decline, of 48.3 percent.

Video: New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin on “The Daily Show” last night, talking about his book Too Big To Fail.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The new Saturday-Sunday edition will be called USA TODAY EXTRA and will be available only to subscribers of the paper’s digital or print versions.

“USA TODAY is perfectly modeled to suit all the new and emerging technologies we are seeing in the marketplace,” Hunke said in a release. “We’re very pleased to be able to bring the e-Edition to our readers and we will continue to look for new platforms to grow on.”

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the company will cut 1,000 and 2,000 of its 41,500 employees. The layoffs will come from Gannett’s U.S. Community Publishing division, consisting of its 80+ daily newspapers, and USA TODAY will not be affected, the Journal added. The New York Times points out that Gannett’s U.S. and British newspaper divisions have cut more than 10,000 jobs in 2007 and 2008, which includes about 2,000 layoffs this past fall.

In May, our sister blog MediaJobsDaily reported exclusively that USA TODAY had laid off three ad sales reps in its New York office and one in Chicago on May 13. Gannett has also made other cost-cutting measures this year, saving $20 million through furloughs in the first quarter and requiring most of its employees to take a second furlough before June. Apparently such measures were not enough to avoid additional layoffs during the second half of 2009.

We’ll keep you posted as this story develops. But we have a feeling this bad news may come down on Thursday afternoon or Friday when all the world is already on vacation for the Fourth of July.

Update: Gawker has published an internal memo from Gannett’s U.S. Community Publishing division president Bob Dickey, which states that about 1,400 people will be losing their jobs and announcements should be coming down on July 9.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

TheDeal: A week after Gannett Co. CEO Craig Dubow took medical leave, questions are raised about whether the company can survive beyond June 2011.

Editor & Publisher: Leaders of the News Media Guild, which represents AP employees, have requested a meeting with editors to discuss a contentious social media policy distributed to staffers last week.

Plum TV: Jaquelynn Powers interviews former colleague, Page Six’s Paula Froelich, about her book, “Mercury in Retrograde”.

Time Out New York: If you read her blog you know that Julia Allison broke up with Time Out New York, where she was the dating columnist, a while back. But today, the pub has an exit interview with the media celebutante. And yes, she’s still single — and she blames her apartment. “It’s like walking into a giant tutu,” she said.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.