Just because it’s “new media” or something other than newspapers, doesn’t mean it’s immune to advertising revenue declines.  Keep the following in mind when bemoaning the accelerated slide in newspaper revenue.  So what can be done to offset declining advertising revenue?  Paid online access?  The Wall Street Journal does it, to the tune of ~$100million a year!

1. Gawker Media is consolidating their Silicon Valley blog Valleywag into Gawker.com.

2. Conde Nast has laid off roughly 60 people November 11th from CondeNet, the company’s internet division.

3. Al Gore is doing no better!!!  Current Media, the cable network co-founded by Al Gore also just laid off about 60 people.

So should Newspaper sites go for a paid online revenue model?  The current market conditions are highlighting a problem everyone knew already existed.  Having only one revenue stream is an untenable long term business model.  Newspapers need to figure out how to give away the bulk of their information, and make their most valuable offerings, subscriber based.

WSJ.com does this quite well.  Can your paper’s site do this?  If your paper has nothing worth charging a subsciber for, then it’s time to take a long hard look at what value you are providing your readers and subscribers.