More on Borrell
OK, I did get to read the executive summary, and there is a bit of funny money still in there, or as Borrell refers to it "undoubtedly relying on the generosity of their parent companies for free or discounted promotion, content and office space" for margins above 50 percent.

Still, when more than eight in 10 of the newspaper sites report profitability, that's encouraging. That "generosity" has limits, and the chances are that if that many say they're profitable, a fair number would be profitable even beyond the subsidies.

The really important thrust of this report is that local advertisers seem to have discovered the Web in force. Newspapers are lessening their reliance on classifieds, the report says, because they have largely tapped the online revenue from those categories and are moving on (though there certainly is plenty of debate in this area in other forums). And broadcast stations began generating their revenue by adding such sites, so the storm clouds are still there.