I don't agree with the common diagnosis of what ails the newspaper industry. If newspapers focused primarily on their online products, people would probably enj

I don't agree with the common diagnosis of what ails the newspaper industry. If newspapers focused primarily on their online products, people would probably enjoy them more. What would that cause? Existing online readers would generate more page views. Many print readers would switch to the digital version. Attracting new readers is unlikely. Local publications have about as much market share as they could ever hope to have[1]. The rest of the market probably just doesn't want their news via text, or doesn't care about news at all. If most of the effects from improving online content are from moving readers from print to online and increasing page views from existing users, you've just lost money. Print ads are more profitable than online ads, so losing a print reader to the online version is a loss. More page views from existing readers isn't much of a gain. Newspapers rarely sell out their online ad inventory. From my understanding, that gives us two scenarios for advertisers: 1) The advertiser has bought as many ads as they can afford. 2) The advertiser has bought ads for their entire desired audience, and would buy more if it were available. Advertisers in group 1 can't afford more ads at all, so there's no hope there. In group 2, increasing page views of existing readers accomplishes little to nothing. The advertisers already advertise to those readers, and are unlikely to want to show more ads to them. That leaves us with few significant avenues for increasing revenue. You can try to kill Craigslist, or increase ad yield by targeting and delivering ads more effectively, both of which seem rather difficult. Improving the online news experience would be cool, but it's not profitable enough to save the industry as so many claim. [1] For example, http://www.statesman.com/search/content/advertising/media_kit/audience.html http://www.statesman.com/search/content/advertising/media_ki...