Newspaper Ad Revenues Collapse to 1950 Levels

I interpret the data to be that global expansion of advertising 'inventory', bloggers can try to take credit but the credit rests solely on Google, and more specifically on Google's AdSense for Content program.

Advertisers want reach to get to as many people as possible and Google could offer longer reach for the same amount of money, so advertisers started switching. And they are a herd, it works for Proctor and Gamble it will work for Macys or Safeway. When I can put my advertisment on a billion blog pages and only pay when someone actually cares enough to click on it? Win! No need for the customer to say "Oh I saw your ad in the Tribune" or special phone numbers to know where the lead came from. More analytics than you could shake a stick at, better targeting, and visible results. What's not to like?

Google has been strangling the newspaper business by taking away their advertising revenue. Newspapers don't have a model yet where they can live off their subscriptions. That much is true. But even if the papers die and are reborn into something that is more like the Economist than the Daily Mail, amateur journalist bloggers will be no less successful at displacing professional journalists than amateur photographers have displaced professional ones.