(Adds CEO comment)

By Robert MacMillan

NEW YORK, May 22 (Reuters) - Media General Inc (MEG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) reported an 11 percent drop in monthly revenue on Thursday and said it is cutting jobs as the company struggles with falling advertising sales at its newspapers.

Media General, which owns papers and local television stations in the southeastern United States, said revenue fell to $78.7 million, mostly because of poor classified advertising results in Tampa, Florida, one of the markets hardest hit by a downturn in the housing market.

The company also said it will cut 11 percent of its jobs to 6,150 by the third quarter as it reins in expenses. That number is based on a peak employment number of 6,900 in 2007, it said.

Media General, which started shedding the jobs last year, plans to expense severance costs of $4 million to $4.5 million for the cuts in the second quarter.

"We had the 2007 budget scheduled in the fourth quarter of 2006," Chief Executive Marshall Morton said in an interview. "Even by January, we realized there was no chance of attaining because Florida was already headed into a downturn."

Most of the cuts are coming at its newspapers, which include the Richmond Times-Dispatch in its hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and the Tampa Tribune.

The company will trim jobs in its corporate and broadcast divisions and add about 60 jobs to its interactive unit, a common move among newspaper publishers rushing to build their presence and revenue on the Internet.