For the first time, fewer survey respondent – 56 percent – ranked newspapers as  important or very important sources of information for them than those who said the Internet (78 percent) and television (68 percent) were important or very important sources of information. The number for newspapers was down from 60 percent in the school’s 2008 survey.

But, 61 percent of Internet users said less than half of online information is reliable, and 14 percent said that little or none of it is reliable. The latter figure is up from previous years, according to Media Daily News.

Looks like ease of use – the computer, TV or mobile device people are connected to anyway vs. a different copy of the newspaper arriving in the driveway each day – is more important that the information itself.

More than 20 percent of respondents said they would not miss the printed newspaper.

The downward spiral in print newspaper circulation no doubt will be accelerated by  advances in online delivery of news content through e-readers or other handheld electronic devices,” Jeffrey I. Cole, director of  the school’s Center for the Digital Future, said in a statement quoted by Editor & Publisher. “After years of aborted attempts, these advances finally appear to be practical and  affordable methods of providing electronic news content to readers.  If so, what will that mean for  the future of the traditional print newspaper?”

Meanwhile, 70 percent of Internet users said online advertising is “annoying,” and half said they never click on Web ads. But 55 percent said they would rather put up with Web advertising than pay for content.

“The Street will no longer be satisfied with earnings pumped up only by continual cost-cutting. Gannett (GCI) handily beat Street estimates of earnings – but its overall earnings, in a quarter when its broadcast properties were humming nicely, was down 1.6%. … GCI got hammered for those results Friday, falling more than 10 percent.”

Gannet’s print and circulation revenues were down for the quarter also.

Other publishers’ stocks are also down as their 2Q reports come in the next several days, Fitzgerald says.

The deal adds Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, to an advertising consortium that includes more than 800 members, according to Online Media Daily. McClatchy newspapers, the third-largest publisher, was one of the first members of the consortium, formed in November 2006.

Like other publishers in the deal, Gannett may also provide local content for Yahoo! properties in the U.S., including the Yahoo! homepage.

“To date, the consortium has sold more than 40,000 ad campaigns onto Yahoo! totaling more than $100 million in sales to date, according to Lem Lloyd, vice president of channel sales at Yahoo!,” says Online Media Daily.

Yahoo’s publishing platform enables “local newspapers to target consumers according to geographic, demographic and behavioral factors in ads that appear on Yahoo! properties from mail to sports to news.”

Yahoo!, which at the time was being run by former Knight Ridder executives, said at the launch of the program that it was teaming with newspapers because they already had local advertising staffs.

Local advertising accounts for about half of the $245 billion in total U.S. ad spending, Online Media Daily says.

Gannett announced in May that it would begin to sell online marketing services, another program adopted earlier by McClatchy. GannettLocal offers search engine marketing, e-mail, digital display, website and geo-targeted print/flyers.

“Lee Jones, evp, advertising, USAT, said that in the past, concerns about editorial integrity, production and circulation deterred USAT from selling ads that wrapped the paper, but that market demand and quality of the ad allayed those worries,” MediaWeek reported.

As to “editorial integrity” versus “market demand,”  the  wrap promoting Jeep’s 2011 Grand Cherokee will bring in $1 million in a deal that includes presence on the newspaper’s iPad app and Web site.

The ad marked the first time the Gannett flagship had wrapped its news section with an ad. The wrap completely obscured the paper as shown through the window of outdoor racks, MediaWeek said.

USAT wrapped its Life section with a Verizon ad July 1 and recently introduced other front-page ads that do not obscure editorial.

Ipsos had conducted about one poll a month for McClatchy, usually about politics, Robert Rankin, McClatchy’s government and politics editor, told MMA’s Joe Strupp.

“The budget requires that that relationship comes to an end,” Rankin said. “… This hurts. We are staffing (political coverage) at about the same level. But we can’t cover the absence of polls. There is no way to replace them.”

“McClatchy’s move is not unique,” Strupp writes. “Numerous news outlets in print and on air have been cutting back on the use of polls, most citing budgetary needs.”

The sites for the Tallahassee Democrat, The Greenville (S.C.) News and The (St. George, Utah) Spectrum are charging $9.95 a month for online-only access. The fee for web access bundled with a print subscription varies by market.

Gannett’s Kate Marymont, vice president of news for Gannett’s Community Publishing Division, told Mitchell the company targeted sites with niche content – such as Clemson football coverage in Greenville and Florida State football in Tallahassee.

“We want to test the idea that our journalism is more of a service than a product, and that we should give readers a selection of delivery methods,” Marymount said.

Robin Pence, Gannett’s vice president of corporate communications, said the company will use what it learns from the test sites “to help us develop our long-term strategy for paid content.”

After reviewing “more than a dozen ways that the government could assist newspapers,” recommendations due this fall “are likely to exclude subsidies or new taxes to support newspaper companies,” Bloomberg Businessweek says, quoting an anonymous source.

“FTC officials won’t back financial aid because Congress is unlikely to approve it, the person told Bloomberg Businessweek.com,” the report says.

The agency may recommend that the Small Business Administration expand its program to provide loans to news startups, and propose tax benefits for so-called hybrid news organizations that are modestly for-profit while avowedly pursuing the public good.

“Under the Boocoo.com business model, ZIP codes are ‘licensed’ to newspapers and other media partners who then have the exclusive right to split transactional fees generated by the auction site,” according to Editor & Publisher. “If the buyer and seller are from different ZIP codes, the fee is split. If they are from the same ZIP code, the newspaper keeps the entire transaction fee.”

The program was developed by Ranger Data Technologies, which says it has licensed 20 percent of the approximately 29,700 residential ZIP codes in the U.S.

Media Daily News says the service will initially have a total print audience of 22 million readers.

Listing fees start at $0.20 for items priced $9.99 or under, and range up to $1.60 for items priced $200 or more, with Boocoo charging the seller 6 percent of the final price up to the first $1,000.

The site will be activated on newspaper and other media sites today prior to a national launch June 21.

Boocoo.com was featured in the April 2010 print edition of E&P.

Online ad sales rose 4.9 percent in the quarter to $730.4 million, well shy of the $2.96 billion newspapers earned through their largest advertising segment, retail — or display — advertising.

Revenue from printed retail advertising fell 11 percent in the quarter, according to a Bloomberg report, which compares well to a 24 percent drop in the same period a year earlier. Classified advertising fell 14 percent to $1.25 billion, and national ads fell 8.3 percent to $1.04 billion.

The ad tracking service, Kantar Media, a unit of WPP, reported the numbers Wednesday morning.

“Thirteen of the 19 types of media tracked by Kantar experienced spending gains in the first quarter, the company reported, ranging from 1.5 percent for Spanish-language magazines to 22 percent for spot television,” the NYT said. “Of the media in which ad spending declined, the decreases ranged from 0.4 percent for outdoor ads to 13.2 percent for syndicated national television.”

The increase shows that marketers are confident that the recession is ending, the report says. The bulk of the spending is attributed to big corporations, including Procter & Gamble, up 17.7 percent; AT&T, up 26.7 percent; and General Motors, up 28.5 percent.