As Online Revs Slow, And A Downturn Begins, Newspaper JVs Expected To Rise: Report

The spate of online media acquisitions over the past few years have so far failed on a number of levels, according to the annual State of The News Media report. Issued by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a non-profit group affiliated with Pew Research Center, the report’s online section identifies a number of warning signs – along with one or two bright spots – for the new industry and its ability to successfully adjust to the dictates of the digital era. For traditional news organizations, the hope lies in strengthening ties with hyperlocal sites and even with each other, such as the Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Newspaper Consortium and its new challenger, quadrantOne, which is backed by the New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT). and others. Online section highlights of the PEJ report after the jump:

Audience growth, finances fall: While the number of users accessing news sites continues to grow, along with the audience for major news sites in particular, news sites are falling behind financially compared to other online categories. As nearly every publicly traded newspaper publisher has shown over the past few years, print and circulation revenues have declined, while online ad revenues have been typically rising. But news site ad revs haven’t been rising as quickly as other kinds of online destinations. Furthermore, these figures do not include the most important revenue source, search, where news is a relatively small player. Overall, news is the third-largest category of online advertising, behind portals and search engines, as well as business/finance/investing sites.

Walled gardens: It’s becoming more common for online news publishers to direct readers outside of the

Comments have been disabled for this post