San Francisco newspaper analyst Alan Mutter (pictured) says on his blog that the partnership Yahoo formed with several newspaper chains including Hearst and MediaNews nearly a year ago produced an impressive one-time infusion of cash for publishers, but revenues probably won’t increase much in the second year of the deal. One unnamed executive told Mutter: “We aren’t anywhere near matching the initial gains … We are struggling and I don’t see how we are going to make it.”

Mutter writes:

“If this experience proves to be commonplace, it would throw cold water on the idea that hefty, double-digit advances in online sales in the next few years could help Yahoo’s newspaper partners offset an appreciable portion of their declining print revenues.”