The problem for publishers is ad performance (Score 1)

I am consulting for a publisher currently struggling with declining print revenue and anemic online revenue. This board has been filled with some pretty hare-brained economics and misunderstandings of publishing. As previously pointed out, advertising is the profit driver for almost all traditional media, both published and broadcast. The web has added an unfortunate twist for those who sell advertising vehicles (newspapers, magazines, sit-coms, etc.). With the web you no longer have a passive audience, and you have truly measurable results. Advertisers are demanding that rates be tied to click-through performance, etc. Companies that get this will have staff who constantly tweak and optimize, making realtime advances in performance. Who knows if this will ever be enough? But if what passes for independent journalism in this country cannot make money, we will end up with the type of corporate journalism that dominates the television news, like the Walmart-ABC Evening News or the GE-NBC Nightly News.