Sacramento-based McClatchy Co., publisher of The Fresno Bee, announced a net loss for the first quarter of $7.9 million — a 10-percent improvement from an adjusted loss of $8.7 million in the first quarter of 2015.

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Total revenues for the quarter were $248 million, down 7.5 percent from the same quarter last year. Total advertising revenues were down nearly 10 percent as well — a two-percentage point improvement from the fourth quarter of last year.

Pat Talamantes, McClatchy’s president and CEO, said in a statement: “We entered 2016 optimistic that our ongoing digital strategies and momentum from 2015 would propel us forward and indeed they are doing so. Our digital audiences have never been greater, the demand for our journalism never stronger and our digital ad solutions are in tune with the specialized services and products our advertisers want. Our digital-only revenues had strong growth in the quarter, up 18% when compared to first quarter of 2015. Our average total unique and local unique visitors reached nearly 52 million and 14 million, respectively, as of the end of March 2016 — a record for first quarter results.

McClatchy reported a 36.7 percent increase in national digital advertising revenue, from $3.7 million in the first quarter of last year up to $5.1 million in the first quarter of this year.