Content Matters

Via Editor & Publisher, this article summarizes some of the findings of a new analyst report by Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Fine.
The theme of the Editor & Publisher article is that it will take 30 years for online revenues to equal print advertising revenue for newspapers.  Fine comes to this conclusion, doing a "back of the envelope" calculation using double-digit increases in online ad revenue through 2012, then 5% annual growth thereafter. 
The basic premise of the calculation makes no sense to me.  Does anyone really expect the newspaper business to gradually evolve from its current model over the next 30 years?  I see three trends that tell me that a gradual shift from print to online ad model for newspapers won't happen:

1. Newspaper and Media companies are diversifying their properties, leveraging new forms of traffic to gain eyeballs for their content. 
2. The separation of news from the newspaper opens up this market to many new competitors.  Today that includes companies like Yahoo and Topix with many new entrants to come.  Meanwhile, local search is evolving and seems poised to make further inroads into what has traditionally been the purview of the newspaper industry.
3. Young people entering the workforce today don't read printed newspapers.  While the demographic shift may not happen overnight, a large portion of the traditional newspaper market will go away sooner, rather than later.

While the newspaper industry has already gone through a great deal of change, I think the next 5-10 years will bring a faster rate of change than we've seen the past decade.  Advertisers will use different methods to reach consumers.  Some traditional newspaper companies like the NY Times and WSJ may position themselves to take advantage of this change and might see their online/offline revenue mix change rapidly.  Others will cling to their old models and see their market share and revenues erode quickly.  At the same time, new entrants will disseminate news information in compelling new ways.

A slow, 30-year transition from print to online?  I doubt it.