Now What?

The New York Times reported this week that online advertising revenue for newspapers has been declining in an article entitled Newspapers’ Web Revenue Is Stalling.

A lot of papers have been expanding their online features to attract and increase add revenue, and they were all betting for big returns.

Unfortunately in the last quarter online add revenue was down 2.4 percent.

To help slumping sales many in the industry struggle to decide whether or not to use add networks to fill up empty add space which would otherwise go unused. Others are limiting their add space and filling it themselves to improve their add revenue and percentages.

According to an article from Bloomberg.com Wachovia Capital Markets and Barclays Capital estimated that add revenue will continue to fall throughout this year and the next.

Some papers are taking drastic measures; the McPherson Sentinel from Kansas has cut out the entire day stopping the print of newspapers for Mondays.

From the same above mentioned Bloomberg article we get this quote from Nancy Conway, editor of MediaNews Group Inc.'s Salt Lake Tribune.

“You have to sort of weigh the service versus the cost, and right now newsprint is very costly…Revenue isn't what it used to be, so we have to make some tough decisions.”

Decisions that, for the Salt Lake Tribune, have meant merging and combining sections of the newspaper.

I feel as add revenue continues to slip down we will see newspapers finding new ways to adapt and cut costs.

Any guess what those will be? Comment what you think.