Guess what? Newspapers and online media sites aren’t dead. And what does that mean, marketers will be coming back to them in droves over the next few month, but will pay walls see a decline in the numbers?

Newspaper websites in the US have attracted an average monthly unique audience of 72 million visitors in the fourth quarter of 2009, representing 37% of internet users, according to new figures from Nielsen Online.

Newspaper websites users generated more than 3.2 billion page views during the quarter, spending more than 2.4 billion minutes sites.

The results come as News Corp reports a net profit of $254m for 2009. It’s CEO – Rupert Murdoch, who is the main voice behind the push for pay walls by the year 2011 on major newspaper websites – said that “content is not just king but the emperor of all things electronic,” reassuring advertisers that consumers “will pay for content”.

So the world is going digital, this is not news. What is interesting to note though is how multiplatform the media industry has become and the variety that advertisers are now presented with.

Furthermore, with online newspaper figures so positive, it brings further confidence to the market that devices such as the Amazon Kindle and Apple’s iPad will be able to succeed.

As the economy begins to stabilize, newspaper companies are in position to leverage their trusted brands to reach a highly engaged audience and deliver maximum value to advertisers, according to Newspaper Association of America.

News Corp will be announcing within two months its model for charging for the online content of the New York Post, Times of London and all its other newspapers.

While today’s Nielsen figures sound impressively up 5.5%, it is still not known if advertisers will be willing to pay to have their ads behind paid-for content given the negative reactions from readers.

Asked what they would do if their favorite news site suddenly began charging, 74% of online news readers said they would “find another free site,” according to a Harris Interactive study commissioned by PaidContent UK. Only 5% said they’d pay to continue reading for fee.

The debate continues…

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