Future of Print Newspapers

There was an interesting article in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News cutting back on their delivery.  Instead of delivery 7 days a week, these two newspapers will only be delivered three days and two days respectively.  See the following article:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5giPpLLVIzF-IfWoe40J20FKsaNcQD953VHNO0

As a carrier for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel myself, I've seen the number of subscribers slowly decreasing over the last 5 years.  Five years ago, I had almost 240 Sunday subscribers and now I am down to just about 200-210 on Sunday.  As more and more news is available on the internet and technology evolves, I think that you will see additional newspapers doing what the two in Detroit have decided to do.  The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has already made a number of business decisions to help keep costs down including most recently the decision to only deliver the TV Cue section to customers that request it (there's no additional charge for it).

If you've looked at the paper recently, you'll also notice that the classified sections are getting smaller and smaller.  With all of the free websites available to consumers, why would they spend the money to put an ad in the paper?  This is likely to be a trend that continues.

As the print versions of the newspapers go away, I think you'll see, like in Detroit, an emphasis on internet news from the newspaper companies.  There is still a need for local news that the large companies (CNN, Fox News, etc) can't provide.  Business models for the newspaper companies will likely have income coming from on-line advertising as most people probably won't want to pay for a subscription.  The elimination of "hard copy" newspapers is probably a long ways away yet - I know my wife still looks forward to the print ads - but I think it's only a matter of time.