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The ailing UK newspaper advertising market is set to get even worse next year with national titles forecast to face an almost 9% decline that will see display revenue fall below £1bn for the first time, according to Sir Martin Sorrell's Group M.

In 2005 the regional newspaper advertising market was worth more than £2.5bn.

Total spend on regional newspaper advertising is projected to fall from about £1.09bn this year to £971m at the end of next year.

My opinion: I believe that the decline of newspapers was always coming with the rapid growth of the internet. Charles Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the fittest’ comes to mind and newspapers just have not adapted to the change causing them to fall behind.

Advertisers will spend almost £250m less on newspaper ads this year than forecast at the end of 2011.

National newspaper advertising will fall short by £127m from what was forecast in December, with regional newspapers falling £120m.

The reality is total newspaper ad spend will fall 7.3% year on year, from £2.51bn to £2.33bn.

National newspaper ad spend will fall 5.1% year on year to £1.22bn while regional newspaper spend will drop 9.6% to £1.11bn, according to Zenith.

The main beneficiaries are outdoor advertising, which has had an upgrade from 3.9% growth in September to 6%, and the internet.

 Internet ad spend is expected to grow 10.5% this year.

My opinion: The forecasts may have been exaggerated due to the Olympics and Paralympics so I don’t believe that these show the true nature of the decline however, the forecast of the internet ad spend growth should be worrying for others. The fact that more companies are advertising on the internet is probably not surprising to many if not all.

Slashing losses at the Times and Sunday Times, running at an estimated £1m a week.

Guardian News & Media, which lost £44.2m last year, is trying to cut 68 editorial jobs – having already accepted just over 30 voluntary redundancies, and has told staff that compulsory redundancies cannot be ruled out.

 The Independent lost £18m in its last full financial year and its owner Alexander Lebedev has said he is looking for a minority investor.

My opinion:  I believe companies should look to make their profit from elsewhere and not newspapers. Until newspapers to find another way to attract consumers it will be difficult for them to make large profits.

The Sunday Times' circulation fell by just under 1% month-on-month in November, enough to push the market leading quality Sunday below the 900,000 sales mark for the first time.

The Sunday Telegraph which reported a 2.9% month-on-month fall, 432,315, a 7.11% year-on-year decline.

In the tabloid market Rupert Murdoch's Sunday edition of the Sun crept ever closer to falling below the 2m sales mark, with average weekly circulation falling to 2,009,282 in November. This was a 1.39% month-on-month fall.

The worst performer in the tabloid market was Richard Desmond's Daily Star Sunday, which fell 5.35% month-on-month, to 368,268.