"Newspapers are not dead."

FINDING VALUE IN NEWSPAPER STOCKS
[SOURCE: Forbes.com, AUTHOR: Louis Hau]
Credit Suisse analyst John Klim: "tell the chaplain to save his eulogy, erase the 'Dust In The Wind' lyrics from your short-term memory, and pull the obituary from tomorrow's edition, because newspapers are not dead." The reasons for his tempered optimism? For starters, investors have hammered down the valuations of newspaper stocks amid concerns about sliding circulation and advertising revenue. And while newspapers are experiencing a secular loss in advertising to other platforms, Klim estimates that about 64% of the downturn in print advertising is cyclical, particularly in classified real estate and retail ads. More fundamentally, Klim believes that newspapers will survive in the new media landscape because they retain extensive reach among consumers and remain the dominant source of local news and information. He noted that total audience levels are up over the past five years, as growth in unduplicated online readers has offset losses in print circulation. "What we do know is that millions of Americans will continue to seek local news and information, advertisers will want to reach these consumers, and the newspaper, in whatever form, fashion, or iteration, will continue to bring these two separate groups together," he said.
http://www.forbes.com/business/media/2007/12/11/newspapers-cs-analyst-bi...