It is hard enough to find five quarters each morning, but now Janet Robinson, CEO of the New York Times Co., tells me that I am going to need a half dozen quarters Monday through Friday to feed the newspaper box to buy her paper. It’s enough to drive a guy nuts — or at least online to read the Times. [Home delivery in my neck of the woods is spotty. There is a 75/25 chance that the Wall Street Journal is outside my door each Saturday.]

Robinson followed Rupert Murdoch’s lead today by announcing a 25 cent price price hike for the New York Times to $1.50, effective August 18. That’s half the amount that Murdoch is raising over at the Wall Street Journal, which goes to $2 a copy on July 28.

One could argue that soaking NYT readers is about the only thing that is working at the company. Robinson today announced a whopping 82 percent plunge in second-quarter earnings to $21.1 million as advertisers stormed for the exits. That's evidenced by a 10.6 percent decline in ad revenues to $454M.

Circulation revenues, however, rose 2.5 percent to $224M. That boost was credited to higher prices at the NYT. The company raised home delivery prices 4.5 percent in two separate price hikes since last July. NYT readers are now asked to pitch in even more to help Janet get the NYTC back on track.

The Times’ earnings release has the typical boilerplate blather about launching new products, hiking R&D and slicing employee costs to deal with “secular forces playing out across the media industry.”

The company is doing a great job online, yet Internet revenues account for a mere 12.3 percent of total revenues, that percentage is up two points from last year’s period. It is obvious that the 'Net isn’t going to turn around NYTC any time soon.

There is a demand for bold action from Janet and the gang. The sale of the Boston Globe albatross would be a step in that direction. The company’s New England Group posted a 9.8 percent drop in second-quarter revenues to $135M. That’s twice the decline of the NYT Media Group, which was off 4.4 percent to $479M.

The Globe is a Beantown institution. Civic leaders would surely pony up to buy the paper. Ex-General Electric CEO Jack Welch considered and then declined to pursue such a sale, but there are lots of super-egos out there.

The Times doesn’t need the Boston distraction. A high-tech PR CEO recently told me that his shop is closing its long-time Boston office next year because of a restructuring of that market. Unless a PR firm is involved in biotech, cleantech or medical devices, a full-time office in Boston is not required. Since companies in those categories aren’t buying full-page ads in the Globe, the NYTC needs to cut its losses, and concentrate activities both online and on the homefront.