LAT kills off the local section. Yes, you read that right.

So that begs the questions:

What is the general public's response?

How long before advertisers shit their pants with nowhere to promote/sell their sales and products?

 

Advertisers? This is primarily about the rapid decline in advertising.

For most major newspapers, the revenue split is roughly 90% advertising, 10% circulation. When the ads go away, so do our jobs, and maybe our papers.

 

This makes Pete's question a good one.

Is it advertising, or the need for it, that has actually rapidly declined? Or just advertisers' willingness to pay for it, given the combination of a tough economy and said decline of newspapers, and the perception that it would be a waste to advertise in them?

 

Exactly. Right now, in tough times and amidst the highly publicized (and I think overblown) death of newspapers, advertisers are CHOOSING not to run ads. What do they do when they have no other option and a) they realize they get ZERO traffic from web ads and b) have to pay through the nose for TV because TV will inevitably hold all the cards as the only ad outlet and of course up the rates?

 

Good points, Pete. The question is whether enough major advertisers will remain to support a general-interest newspaper, even when the economy rebounds. The loss of classifieds to Craigslist, the merger of so many department stores, the preference of many folks to search interactively for cars and homes online rather than via print ads ... and that's to start.

Then there is the question of what the market might bear for print ads given sharply declining circulation.

It's interesting -- and frightening -- to imagine where newspapers might be able to rebound once the economy does.