MediaNews Group reported Tuesday a profit of $4.3 million in the first quarter on revenues of $317 million, or about a 1 percent margin. That’s better than the same quarter last year when the company reported a $3.6 million loss on revenues of $208 million. The company’s revenues jumped in the last year because it acquired several former Knight Ridder newspapers including the Mercury News and Contra Costa Times. Without the papers it acquired, MediaNews would have seen an 8.7 percent drop in advertising revenues for the quarter. MediaNews said in its filing:

All the newspaper advertising revenue categories suffered declines, except Internet advertising revenue, which grew 9.9 percent and 9.6 percent for the three and nine months ended March 31, 2007, respectively.

Within the print classified advertising category, classified real estate gains were offset by decreases in classified automotive and employment for the nine-month period ended March 31, 2007. However, for the three-month period ended March 31, 2007, all print classified advertising categories were down as compared to the same period in the prior year.