Business Models For Newspapers and the Internet

The new book The Changing Business of Journalism and Its Implications for Democracy, published by Oxford, suggests that newspapers in the UK and the US depend too much on ads for their revenue, a business model that may need to change if they expect to survive in the Internet age. According to an article in the Guardian,

In many countries where online activity is high, including Scandinavia and Germany, newspapers are still faring well, with titles typically generating 50% of revenues from advertising.

In the UK and the US, where advertising accounts for a larger proportion of revenues, the picture is far gloomier, but that could be explained by a cyclical advertising recession which has seen spend fall dramatically in recent years, the study suggests.

"Countries like the US, Germany and Finland all have about the same proportion of internet users", the books (sic) editors write.