A billion here, a billion there
Pretty soon, newspapers and TV stations might be talking real money from their Web sites.
The e-mail release that landed in my inbox today from Borrell Associates say those Web sites have reached $1 billion in revenues. Among other things: Newspaper sites rely less on classifieds, 83 percent say they're profitable and their margins are running to 60 percent. Haven't had a chance to look through the executive summary yet, so don't know if there's still funny money involved -- that most newspaper or TV Web sites get their content for free and don't have to figure apportioned costs into their bottom lines.
Another finding: [M]any TV stations finally awoke to the Internet in 2003. About one-fifth of the stations generated their first Internet dollar in 2003 ...
This could get interesting, although if the money's coming from ads masquerading as "expert" referrals, as it does at one of my local station's Web sites, it's filthy lucre.