A.H. Belo Corp. of Dallas said yesterday it plans to cut $50 million in expenses over the next eight months, partly by reducing the work force at its newspapers — The Providence Journal, the Dallas Morning News and the Riverside, Calif., Press Enterprise.

The job cuts are the result of a broad restructuring that A.H. Belo said it is implementing as it faces an “unprecedentedly adverse business environment in the newspaper industry.”

As part of the plan, A.H. Belo said it will eliminate the equivalent of about 500 full-time jobs company wide, representing about 14 percent of its overall work force of about 3,570 employees.

A.H. Belo said it hopes to achieve the targeted job cuts through voluntary severance offers.

If not enough workers agree to the buyout, the company said it will have to resort to layoffs.

A.H. Belo said it has already eliminated the equivalent of 170 full-time jobs so far this year through attrition and “disciplined hiring practices.”

In a statement to shareholders, Robert W. Decherd, the chairman, president and chief executive officer of A.H. Belo, said, “We believe that the resultant, smaller work force — focused intensely on products that take full advantage of A.H. Belo’s local capabilities in content creation and sales — is best suited for the business opportunities that will define future success.”

At The Providence Journal, which has the equivalent of about 700 full-time employees, the voluntary severance packages are being offered to about 260 non-management workers, said Howard G. Sutton, The Journal’s chairman, publisher, president and CEO.

The company will accept a maximum of 54 — including 37 in its news-gathering operations and 17 in advertising, he said.

However, “The number we would hope would take part in the voluntary severance offer” is 35, Sutton said.

The reduction at The Providence Journal would therefore amount to 5 percent of its work force, compared with a 14-percent reduction that A.H. Belo is seeking company-wide.

If the reduction proceeds as planned, The Providence Journal would still have a staff of more than 200 news and editorial employees, and more than 100 in its advertising operations, he said.

“While there will be . . . fewer employees at The Providence Journal, we’re still going to produce a quality newspaper seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, and we’re going to continue to invest in projo.com,” The Providence Journal’s Web site, Sutton said. “We’re not deviating from our mission, our values or our objectives,” he said.

The Providence Journal’s overall revenues have declined over the last few years, mainly because of a drop in classified advertising, Sutton said.

The decline in classified ad revenue is due in part to a slumping economy and to the migration of some classified advertisers to Web-based products, he said.

Still, The Providence Journal remains profitable, partly the result of managing expenses and continued investment in capital expenditures “to help us do things more efficiently,” Sutton said.

In a letter to employees issued yesterday, Sutton said that while The Providence Journal’s financial performance is positive, “We are not immune to the revenue declines (especially in classified advertising), dramatic increases in newsprint prices, increased costs fueled by oil prices and rising health-care expenses.”

Sutton added, “We need to reduce our expense base as we continue to battle secular and cyclical challenges to our franchise and the industry.”

John Morton, a veteran newspaper industry analyst, said that the reduction in work force planned by A.H. Belo is in the midrange of staff cuts being undertaken this year by many other newspaper companies, such as Tribune Co. and The McClatchy Co.

“Almost all newspaper companies . . . have been cutting” staff, said Morton, president of Morton Research Inc., a consulting firm in Silver Spring, Md.

The main reason is that newspaper companies are seeing a reduction in revenues from classified advertising, including ads for real estate, jobs and cars, he said.

It is not clear whether newspaper companies will be able to recover the lost revenue when the current economic downturn ends, he said.

A.H. Belo also said yesterday that it plans to sell some real estate in each of its three principal markets.

The company is issuing a request for proposals from three national real-estate companies, and expects to receive their responses within six to eight weeks, Decherd said.

The responses will allow A.H. Belo to analyze opportunities for raising “some cash from the sale of some real estate,” Decherd said in a telephone interview yesterday.

“For us to flourish as a company, we have to be financially sound,” and the possible sale of some real estate could generate cash which A.H. Belo would invest in technology and other areas to generate further growth for the company, he said.

“Some property in each of our three markets will likely be sold, but we won’t do it in a haphazard way,” Decherd said.

The sale of some real estate that A.H. Belo owns in Providence, and that A.H. Belo owns jointly with Belo Corp. in downtown Dallas, could produce pretax proceeds of about $35 million, Decherd said in his message to shareholders, citing internal company estimates. No sales will be completed before mid-2009, he said.

In Providence, A.H. Belo’s holdings include The Providence Journal’s headquarters at 75 Fountain St., a parking garage next to the Biltmore hotel, three surface parking lots nearby and a large parcel of land near the Providence Place mall on which is located The Providence Journal production facility, a newspaper warehouse, Rhode Island Monthly magazine, storage space and a regional distribution center, Sutton said.

Also yesterday, the following points emerged:

•The Providence Journal is in the process of implementing a $7.7-million investment in its presses, which will allow the company to improve the quality of its printed products and to print other publications.

The Providence Journal already prints The Warwick Beacon, The Cranston Herald, Providence en Espanol and other publications and advertising inserts, and continues to have discussions with other publishers.

•Starting next month, The Providence Journal will begin delivering, in its market, The Wall Street Journal. “We are having conversations with other out-of-market publishers regarding delivery of their products,” Sutton said in his letter to employees.

•Although The Providence Journal recently raised the single-copy and home-delivery prices of its daily and Sunday papers, “Our [circulation] losses were less than we anticipated, readership remains strong, and the incremental revenue is significant,” Sutton said.

•In an effort to reduce newsprint consumption, A.H. Belo will trim the width of its newspapers, Decherd said. For example, the width of The Providence Journal’s pages, now 12 ½ inches, could be trimmed to 12 inches at the start of next year’s second quarter, Sutton said.

•A.H. Belo also plans to reduce its overall marketing and promotional expense, travel expense and other discretionary expenses.

•After the restructuring is completed, The Providence Journal will have to reallocate its resources “to best cover the news and information that’s important to our readers,” Sutton said in an interview.

•A.H. Belo’s dividend yield — that is, its cash dividend as a percentage of its stock price — is “unrealistically high and cannot be sustained over time,” the company said. But the company stopped short of saying it will cut its dividend; the company’s board of directors will meet in September to determine A.H. Belo’s dividend strategy for the coming year, Decherd said. The company currently pays a quarterly cash dividend of 25 cents a share — the equivalent of $1 a year — for an indicated annual yield of 16.7 percent.

•A.H. Belo’s overall restructuring is “intended to change substantially the business model for the company’s print products while accelerating the allocation of resources to promising new products both in print and online,” the company said.

•For the three months ended June 30, A.H. Belo reported a net loss of about $3.2 million, or 16 cents a share, compared with a net profit of $12.3 million, or 60 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.

Second-quarter revenue fell 15.1 percent, to $163.25 million, compared with $192.28 million for the same period a year earlier.

Stock in A.H. Belo Corp. (AHC:NYSE) closed yesterday at $5.98 a share, down 42 cents.

ndowning@projo.com