The Business Model Of An Online-Only Newspaper

The Seattle P-I may have it right.

Peter Kafka at Mediamemo posts a spreadsheet he got from Mark Josephson, the founder of Outside.in, who figures that the online-only newspaper of tomorrow will support about 20 staff. Six of those are reporters, or “news gatherers” or “content creators” or what have you.

The “paper” then has to get 40 million page views a month, plus another 40 million from a third party network. This results—if the ad folk can sell high enough CPMs—in a profit margin of 43 percent.