Newspapers Search for Ways To Stay Relevant

This weekend, I spent some time visiting my parents at their home in a small suburb of Tampa. While I was there, I encountered a form of media that has become almost foreign to me over the past few years: the newspaper. Being a typical twenty-something, I get my news online. In twenty minutes or so, I can visit the St. Pete Times, The Tampa Tribune and The Business Journal, scan the headlines, read the articles that interest me and when I'm finished I have no litter to throw out or recycle.

Flipping through my parents' Sunday paper, I began to think just how antiquated the medium has become. My father even admitted that the only reason they've kept their Sunday subscription is for the retail sales inserts (which are also available online). David Weinfeld recently wrote an article that explores the demise of newspapers, citing that in the first quarter of 2009, ad revenues in the newspaper industry declined by more than $2.6 billion from the previous year. I'm in agreement with David when he says that the newspaper industry will survive in one way or another, either in an alternate form or as a gateway to a deeper media experience.

In order to survive however, newspapers must change. They must seek new formats for their content and new platforms to broadcast from. This is where digital billboard advertising comes in. The Las Vegas Sun is using 18 digital billboards across the city to broadcast their top headlines each day. Rob Curley, a columnist for the Sun, wrote a blog post about the campaign, in which he states, "In the last three months, our traffic has increased by 32 percent on lasvegassun.com. Potential advertisers have also taken notice." By increasing their reach, they're building value for their advertisers, and thus finding new streams of revenue.

These are dark days for print media, but rest assured that forward-thinking publications like the Las Vegas Sun aren't going down without a fight.