CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- It started with the help wanted ads. Now real estate ads are tailing off. But as the shift in advertising from the printed page to the Internet continues, newspaper executives believe there's hope for their product.
"There has never been a greater appetite for news," said Reid Ashe, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Media General Inc. "People are consuming news voraciously."
Ashe joined Tom Curley, president and chief executive of The Associated Press, and a panel of the nation's top newspaper executives Friday at the North Carolina Press Association's annual meeting for a wide-ranging discussion about the future of the industry.
"The end of the world is not upon us," Curley said. "We are convinced that the market for content is growing."
There is no doubt the business faces a financial struggle. This week, Tribune Co. posted a 24 percent drop in real estate advertising. It was also down 9.9 percent at Gannett Co., and at McClatchy Co., where big losses in California and Florida led to a 19 percent decline.
"The worst thing that any of us have ever done, will ever do, (is to) rock back on our heels, saying this too shall pass," said Jay Smith, president of Cox Newspapers Inc., owner of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and more than a dozen other newspapers. "You need to be on the balls of your feet. You need to be trying things.
"We are at the birth of a whole new media."
Scott Flanders, president and chief executive of Freedom Communications Inc., said a decline in housing, automotive and furniture store ads at The Orange County (Calif.) Register have led to a corresponding decline in revenue.
But Flanders said newspapers have yet to take advantage of the ongoing shift in advertising from print to online. Industry analysts believe 30 percent of help-wanted classified ads now appear online, while the Internet's share of classified ads for real estate and auto, currently around 15 to 20 percent, is set to grow.
Flanders said newspaper companies are overcharging for their print advertising, while undercharging advertisers for space on the Web and other electronic media.
"For me, I don't see this as, the house is on fire," Flanders said. "But what concerns me as well (is that) I'm afraid we will become complacent."
The group of executives agreed the challenge facing the industry isn't selling customers on the news, which remains in high demand, but rather figuring out how to profitably deliver it.
"There's enormous appetite for this information. We are the best place to feed that hunger," Smith said, acknowledging later, "One size fits all newspapers don't work anymore."
But the opportunities on the Internet also mean "we have never had a larger audience for our content," said Mary Jacobus, president and chief operating officer for The New York Times Co. Regional Media Group.
To reach that audience, newspapers have to become more accessible, said Howard Weaver, vice president of news for McClatchy Co., which owns newspapers that include The Sacramento Bee and The News & Observer of Raleigh.
"If you deliver a satisfying product to people's doorstep, they are willing to pay for it," Weaver said.
To create that product, Weaver said, newspapers, digital publishers and broadcasters must work together to recruit and develop young talent.
"We don't have any shortages," Weaver said. "We have some incredible, smart, capable people who want to get involved in this business."
