Media General Inc. said yesterday that it will have eliminated nearly 500 jobs companywide this year by July as the Richmond-based communications company continues to cut costs because of declining advertising revenue.

The company, which owns the Richmond Times-Dispatch, said yesterday that it already had cut 250 positions companywide in 2007 through layoffs and attrition.

The cuts are part of a plan to reduce full-time equivalent positions by 750, or 11 percent of its total work force. When the process is completed by July, Media General's work force will decline to 6,150 full-time equivalent positions from a peak of 6,900 in early 2007.

Most of the job cuts will be made in the company's publishing division, which employs nearly 60 percent of Media General's workers.

Media General's operations in Florida will see a sizeable number of the job reductions, company spokesman Ray Kozakewicz said. He did not provide specific numbers.

In April, the company's Florida Communications Group said it would offer voluntary separations to about half of its 1,326 employees at operations which include The Tampa Tribune, television station WFLA, Web site TBO.com and other newspapers.

"We have not released any specific numbers on Tampa at this time," Kozakewicz said.

However, he said Media General has been reducing staff across all of its operations.

Media General owns three metropolitan newspapers, 22 daily community newspapers, 22 network-affiliated television stations and affiliated Web sites, mostly in the Southeast.

The total cuts include 745 jobs in Media General's publishing division, 45 in its broadcast division and 20 across various corporate departments. The 20 job cuts at the company's corporate office in Richmond were announced earlier this month.

However, Media General said it is increasing staffing by 60 workers in its interactive media division, which oversees its Web sites.

Media General said it expects annual savings of $40 million from the job cuts, which will be fully realized in 2009. The company said it will take severance charges of between $4 million and $4.5 million in the second quarter.

The company reported the job reductions in its monthly report on revenue. Media General said revenue in April dropped 10.9 percent to $78.7 million, compared with $88.3 million in April 2007, mostly because of weakness in classified advertising, especially in its Tampa market, which has been hurt by a severe recession.

"Our efforts to reduce operating costs have necessarily included personnel," Marshall N. Morton, the company's president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "We began our workforce reductions in early 2007 in response to the deepening recession in Florida and the overall slowing of the U.S. economy."

Morton said the company also expects to improve profitability through reduced newsprint consumption, lower discretionary spending and new revenue development initiatives.

Media General shares rose 10.7 percent, or $1.59, to $16.40 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or jblackwell@timesdispatch.com.