His newspapers, like others across the country, have been hit by a combination of falling circulation and decreasing advertising volume as more and more people seek their news and ads on the net.
But others see it in less portentous, if worrying, terms as the precursor to another round of sackings as the group faces up to continuing falls in print sales against a background of decreasing advertising revenue.
Mr. Hatch, the analyst, also said that "the same shocks" from decreased advertising that are hitting other media outlets will hit Disney and ABC this year "and they'll face it with possibly weaker programming".
That means it's a race to the bottom by new sites, who are increasingly stressed themselves with a competitive marketplace and decreasing advertising sales.
Retransmission fees, or the fees broadcasters charge cable companies to carry their signals, are projected to rise in the wake of decreasing advertising revenue, according to the same Wall Street Journal article.
Although its broadcast division saw operating income fall 20% to $213 million -- due in part to higher prime-time programming costs and decreased advertising revenue -- the operating income of the company's cable networks was up 12% to $2.09 billion.
Driving the decrease in Advertising revenues were declines in display advertising on AOL Network sites and sales of advertising on third-party Internet sites, offset partially by an increase in paid-search advertising.
The fitness and lifestyle magazine suffered an 18.4 percent decrease in advertising revenue from 2011, when advertisers spent $206.8 million, to 2012, when they spent $168.8 million on the magazine.
In the second quarter, the division's overall revenue fell 6percentt, with a 48percentt decrease in advertising revenue, mainly because of the expiration of long-term advertising sales agreements signed during the Internet boom.
Revenue declined 2.2 percent, to $576.7 million from $589.6 million, in large part because of a 4 percent decrease in advertising.
