Now compare this to the edit-to-ad ratio for most web pages. The densest web page will have one banner ad at the top, eight to 10 Google ads down the right side, and maybe another Google ad or two at the bottom. That sounds like a lot, but on a strict real estate basis, it is very hard to exceed an ad-to-edit ratio of 50 percent, and most web pages have three times as much editorial content as ad space — the exact reciprocal of the experience with paper publications.

There are ways to increase the number of ads on a web page. Rotating banners on pages, plus judicious use of links to ‘spread’ out the editorial material will also yield more space, ie, a page 1,2,3 for a story, each page with its set of ads. Yahoo, for example, if you click on one of their photo slide windows (for example the current one on the trapped miners), you will see a diferent ad show up with each photo. Print media cannot even come close to schemes like that. There is literally nothing that programmers cannot do with web pages, which can easily be made to represent print media, and without killing trees in the process. Remember, that article was written by a member of the tree killer media, so consider the source.

Ah, carpet bombing. Time to move on to smart weapons.

I still prefer paper to the LCD, but it is hard to find compelling content on paper. On the other hand, displays are improving, getting lighter and bigger, so I expect they will replace paper at the office and at home someday. Reading at the beach — when the electronic version of that problem is solved the world will change. Posters? Every wall a screen? And still the bugs will lead their buggy lives, oblivious.

This sounds right to me, but the effects of this are unpredictable.

If efficency of advertising increases, is it possible that the amount advertisers need to spend decreases?

If so, you could see smaller total expenditures for ads, supporting smaller infrastructure (bad news for CBS, NBC, ABC, let alone mass-market print).

Then end effect could be to reduce the cost of getting the word out about your product. Thus making the former mass advertisers more profitable (by reducing a cost of business).

Ultimately, I expect online media to be far more efficient than mass media. Maybe by hundreds of times. I expect people to invent measurement and tracking systems that make it far more possible to tell exactly what your spending produced. And for the folks who invent such things, and the media who make successful use of them, to get filthy rich. Look at the GRPs that, say, an automaker buys versus the number of cars they actually sell. They could easily be buying a thousand exposures to their ad for every car that will finally be sold. Or ten thousand. There’s a lot of room there to tighten things up and be more effective.

But yes, we’re in the painful-confusing-shakeout-period before that happens, and some members of the herd will die first.

Great post, very interesting points. There’s definitely a revenue potential gap right now between print and online that’s going to be very difficult for magazines to fill. But at the same time the fixation on that “golden ratio” has limited the potential transition of print media into a different kind of marketing vehicle. With higher print ad rates you can stay comfortably within the ratio and sustain higher revenues for a greater body of editorial material. We’re starting to see that a bit already in magazines oriented towards elite audiences. There’s also the likelihood of print becoming more of a packaging tool for editorial content that’s assembled on an on-demand, personalized basis and delivered with a wider variety of physical marketing media. The print publication then becomes less of the traditional “flagstaff” vehicle for a fixed editorial staff and more of a delivery vehicle in which the ads wait for the editorial content to show up from a variety of channels. Google is already on this concept in an electronic form with its efforts to tap ads into their new wireless network based on a user’s profile and location. As print publishers detach editorial staffs from ads, composition and physical delivery we’ll see a new kind of print media evolving that will be robust in its own way but without a lot of the historical baggage that no longer needs to apply to the medium.

At the end of the day this probably means that the most talented and connected writers have little to fear. Your meal ticket may be harder to come by during the transition but the most talented people will find their efforts easier to monetize in the long run – albeit on a pay scale that’s a bit more flat for most but with greater potential for add-on income.

The points made regarding online are all pretty valid, both yours and the comments. Online is less about real estate (it’s infinite, with fleeting ideal locations) and more about multimedia and context. It’s also a lot more about Mars and Venus, as recent research has shown: advertising as objective-oriented seduction versus advertising as ongoing relationship-building. Advertising will always have an “id” seduction element to it but online advertising is pushing it to become more relationship-oriented, which will have more value per click but a more evolutionary quality to monetizing the clicks. In short, marketing as we know it is coming unglued through online media. We may actually get to the point of learning about what we need through advertising rather than being told what we should want. Early days, but this will all shape how we’re paid and how we choose what to write about, I am sure.

More competition coming for old media.

I very rarely read the ads when I read Pravda by the Lake (Chicago Trib).

I guess I don’t understand what the big deal is. And it wouldn’t be the first nor the last……

The traditional media would have a difficult time in any case, given the technology and demographic changes; they are making it much worse for themselves by their political bias and rigidity.

The revenue loss is offset by the drastic reduction in production costs. Just look at the expense of paper, printing plant, physical delivery to homes, street boxes, etc. I believe that there is a business model (yet to be found?) for a newspaper to publish mostly online and still maintain their news-gathering capability. This will happen once they stop navel-gazing and get creative. So far, they have not moved away from their 20th century style of doing business. I could go on and on with this, but you probably can too.

I have not seen a magazine ad with flashing lights and blaring sound (yet). My webmail site has an ad like that. Seems like internet advertising is more like TV than it’s like magazine ads. More intrusive. More annoying.

Does a multi-media Flash presentation cost more man hours to create than a full page magazine ad? Wouldn’t it take all the same creative people plus someone who knows how to program Flash? Not yet, of course, the money’s not there yet. But eventually, why not? I wonder what year it was when TV ad revenue exceeded print ad revenue in the U.S. I bet it was just a few years after the first broadcast of the World Series.

Speaking of which, Monday Night Football is moving to ESPN. I don’t have cable so don’t whine to me cable boy! Just kidding! Print is dead, broadcast is dying and I’m getting old. And cranky.