TORONTO – Torstar Corp. (TSX:TS), owner of the Toronto Star newspaper, Harlequin books and other publishing businesses, had a $70.8 million net loss in the third quarter as advertising revenue continued to slide.

Torstar says a writedown of the long-term value of some of its media assets resulted in an $85.4 million impairment charge that reduced operating earnings by $1.06 per share.

As a result, the company had an overall loss of 89 cents per share in the third quarter, compared with a profit of $11.1 million or 14 cents per share a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, Torstar earned 21 cents per share in the quarter ended Sept. 30, up one cent from a year earlier, after excluding the asset impairment, restructuring costs and some other items.

The latest quarter included a total of about $6 million in restructuring charges, mostly in the media division — actually about $1 million less than during the year before.

Torstar’s overall revenue was down 7.7 per cent from a year earlier, dropping to $328 million from $355.3 million in the third quarter of 2012.

The media division, which includes Torstar’s newspapers, accounted for $227.4 million of the total revenue, about $20 million less than a year earlier, while revenue from book publishing was $100.6 million, nearly $8 million lower than in the third quarter of 2012.

Torstar says restructuring and cost reduction will continue to be a major focus as revenue from advertisers remains under pressure.