Plunging advertising sales plus a steady decline in readership, is putting severe pressure on the Agora media company, which was founded two decades ago to give voice to the anti-Communist opposition.

With advertising sales down 31 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 at the company’s flagship daily Gazeta Wyborcza, and circulation continuing to slide, the holding company’s profits fell 94 per cent to 1.1m zlotys ($350,000), on sales of 274m zlotys.