Slow paper death

A Business 2.0 article talking about difficulties major newspapers are having on the print side:

• Dow Jones announced last week that it plans to remove an entire column, roughly 3 inches of newsprint, from the WSJ to save $18 million a year in paper costs.
• New York Times offhandedly mentioned that it is considering similar shrinkage, which it estimates could help save nearly $22 million a year.
• New York Times reported a 52 percent decline in net income.

But a sucessful test highlights what I think is the strength of online, even if the test was for print:

Gannett published no fewer than 20 ‘psychologically zoned’ papers, including one focused on golf, one for boating fans, and one in Spanish. The test was considered a success, with 75 percent penetration of the local market during that week. In other words, Gannett was able to piece together the kind of market share it once enjoyed with just one paper by simulating the Web’s infinity of niches. But should publishing 20 papers, at great expense, be considered progress?

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