The newspaper industry has taken another hit as it was announced that Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Entertainment plan to gradually eliminate their show time listings from newspapers.

Looking to cut costs, the theater chains are instead directing consumers to their Internet sites or third-party sites, like Fandango, Moviefone or Flixster, which offer those listings for free and make money from the fees they charge for selling advance tickets to movies. Many of those sites also feature film reviews and movie trailers.

The effort may be gaining some traction, as U.S. Internet traffic to AMC’s Web site rose 21 percent in July compared with a year ago, according to comScore Inc., while visits to Regal’s Web site were up 18 percent.

“For a reader, some things that are ads are actually considered news,” said Mort Goldstrom, the NAA’s vice president of advertising. “Ads for concerts and things at clubs, for restaurants and movies – that’s a reason people read.”

He said the pullback in listings will hurt theaters by reducing their visibility among potential customers, sending those dollars to competitors that still buy listings or to other sources of entertainment like plays or clubs.

It’s hard to find concrete numbers on how much money newspapers actually make from movie theaters for their listings. It’s been obvious that something like this was going to happen. I can’t remember the last time I looked to the newspaper for movie times. Services such as Fandango, Moviefone, and Flixster don’t charge the theaters to run the times and these sites have become the common way to look up when a movie is playing. Thus, theaters don’t need this type of support from newspapers. Instead, they can use this money to advertise theaters deals and coupons through other mediums as well as newspapers. While this may not devastate the financial state of the Los Angeles Times or the Washington Post, local newspapers will surely feel the pinch.

Seems like newspapers are getting smaller and smaller, doesn’t it?