But for better or worse, none of that matters to investors, who are trying to figure out what the company’s long-term prospects look like. In the near term, they look terrible.

In the first three months of this year, the New York Times Company (NYT) lost $74.5 million, or 34 cents a share once you factor out one-time charges, on revenue of $609 million. That’s worse than Wall Street’s low expectations of a five-cent loss on revenue of $630.8 million.

The reason, of course, is that the ad market is miserable in general, and even more so for newspapers. The company’s ad revenue was down 27 percent, notably worse than the awful 17.6 percent decline the Times recorded in the last quarter of 2008.

And as in the last quarter, former bright spots like the Internet business have now gone dark as well: Internet revenue was down 5.6 percent, Internet ad sales declined 6.1 percent, and revenue at the Times’s About.com unit dropped 4.7 percent.

Expect more of the same for the second quarter of this year, warns CEO Janet Robinson: “At this time, and it is early in the quarter, we believe the rate of decline in ad revenues in the second quarter will be similar to that of the first.”

The Times has been trimming costs (via salary cuts and layoffs) and has bought itself a bit of breathing room by getting rid of its dividend, taking on a very expensive loan from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and selling off assets like its Manhattan headquarters. It still has some moves it can make–it is trying to unload its stake in the Boston Red Sox and to find a buyer for the Boston Globe.

But at some point it’s going to have find a way to start selling more ads again. Because awards alone won’t save the paper–Pulitzers can’t even guarantee their winners’ continued employment.

The Times has stopped providing monthly revenue updates, but it has been pretty good about providing detail via its earnings calls. I’ll be on the road during today’s 11 a.m. call, but will check the transcript and get back to you later with the most interesting nuggets.

Tough news for the Sulzberger clan, which has been living quite well off the Times’s dividend for a long time. And yet another sign that the paper’s cash crunch hasn’t been eased just because it was able to secure a high-interest loan from Carlos Slim last month.

NYT chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. on the move: “Today’s decision provides the Company with additional financial flexibility given the current economic environment and the uncertain business outlook…we have taken decisive steps to reduce capital spending, lower operating costs and re-evaluate our assets.”

The Times has made a variety of cash-saving/raising moves over the past few months, and still has a few others in the works: It’s trying to find someone to buy its stake in the Boston Red Sox, as well as its stake in its new headquarters.

As of last fall, the paper was insisting that it wouldn’t lay off any of its 1,300 newsroom employees. But things have only gotten worse since then.

December was actually less bad than November, which was a complete disaster. The relevant numbers:

• Ad revenue down 15.7 percent, which is less awful than the 20.9 percent decline from the month before.
• Overall revenue down 9.1 percent, another improvement compared to the previous month’s 13.9 percent decline.
• The one real uh-oh stat: Internet ad revenue disappeared. Overall Web revenue dropped 11.4 percent, and ad revenue dropped 12.7 percent. Digital head Martin Nisenholtz had hinted at this in December, but it’s still shocking to see it in print. It’s the second consecutive month that Web ads have declined at the company.
• The Web decline also beat up About.com, which had been the Times’s real bright spot until recently: Revenue was down 13.2 percent there “because of declines in display and cost-per-click advertising.”

Relevant numbers from the fourth quarter: Digital advertising declined 3.5 percent. And the company also disclosed that its pension fund is now $625 million short, a sum it will have to make up over the next seven years.

The New York Times Company (NYT) had already warned that its December numbers would be rough. And it basically pre-announced that 2009 would be lousy, too–“challenging,” in the words of CEO Janet Robinson. Today she offered more guidance in that vein:

As we look ahead, we believe advertisers will continue to be cautious with their budgets, particularly in the early part of this year. To date in January the rate of decline in print advertising revenue has accelerated from what we saw in December, while that of digital is similar to last month.”

So while it’s interesting to peer at past results, the real question for Times investors–including new angel/loanshark Carlos Slim–will be “what are you doing now?” They’ll want to see the paper make steps to fix its near-term debt problems–as it’s trying to do via asset sales–and structure itself for the long haul–which it says it can do without mass layoffs, and which few people believe.

One small step announced this morning: The Times says it has hired Goldman Sachs (G) to formally peddle its interest in the Boston Red Sox and its other Boston-related sports ventures. But given that the paper was reportedly hawking those assets for months, not sure that means that much.

We may get more color about the paper’s plans during its 11 a.m. earnings call; I’ll listen in and report back.

One of the supposed buyers for the New York Times’s (NYT) stake in the Boston Red Sox–one of the few assets the paper can unload as it tries to bail itself out of a cash crunch and looming debt problem–says he’s not buying. Here’s the report from the Boston Globe (which the Times owns):

Both Boston Herald publisher Patrick Purcell and former Boston advertising executive Jack Connors separately flatly ruled out being involved in deals to buy the Boston Globe, which is owned by the New York Times Co. Connors further said he had no interest in buying the Times Co.’s stake in the Boston Red Sox.

The Times has put its 17.5 percent stake in the Red Sox up for sale, and recent news accounts have reported that the company has also offered to sell the Globe, too. The Financial Times reported last week that Connors was in talks with Times executives to buy the Globe and the Red Sox position.

‘There’s nothing to it,’ Connors told the Globe. ‘I’m not buying the Boston Globe. I’m not buying anything that the New York Times owns.’”

As denials go, that’s a fairly strong one. And while that doesn’t mean the Times can’t find someone else to buy its stake in the baseball team–it was reportedly seeking up to $300 million, while other estimates peg the value in the $170 million range–the market didn’t react well to the news. Shares in the Times’ beaten-down stock dropped more than seven percent in after-market trading.

The fate of the Boston Globe, sadly, doesn’t mean much for the Times in terms of solving its financial mess: A few years ago, former GE CEO Jack Welch was reportedly interested in spending up to $600 million for the paper; today it might fetch $50 million or so.

Late today the Times also announced that it had filed a shelf registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission–essentially a placeholder document that allows the company to move quickly with a debt or equity offering if it decides to pull the trigger. Spokesperson Catherine Mathis:

In these difficult markets, the Company wants to ensure that it has maximum flexibility and, accordingly, is filing a shelf that would permit it to offer both debt and equity.

But convincing investors to buy anything is only getting harder for the paper, given the miserable sales numbers it has been reporting: Even before the after-market drop, the stock was worth 60 percent less than it was a year ago.

Last month, the Times cut its dividend, a move that could save it up to $100 million a year. Now the paper is looking to borrow against its new Manhattan headquarters. It has hired a real estate firm to raise up to $225 million using the value of the building as collateral. The company is looking at either a sale-leaseback or a mortgage, reports…the New York Times (NYT).

The Times doesn’t actually own the entire structure–it owns 58 percent, and Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Ratner owns the remainder–but the value of the Times’s share has been previously estimated in the $850 million to $1 billion range. It’s not clear whether the Times now thinks the building is worth much, much less than it did a year ago, or if it’s not looking to borrow against the total value of its property. UPDATE: From the NYT’s Catherine Mathis: “We may borrow up to $225 million. That’s not the market value of the building.”

Executive Editor Bill Keller has told the staff that he’ll try very hard not to fire anyone else at paper. We hope this works out, though other people we know have concluded that the paper must make significant cuts. Other less, painful steps the paper can make to save or raise money: Sell either the Boston Globe and/or its stake in the Boston Red Sox.

But what the Times really needs is for advertisers to start spending more money on digital advertising as they cut back on print ads. And that, sadly, isn’t something the paper can control.