Pew Research Center State of the media 2011
For newspapers, 2010 was comparatively calm after the hair-raising revenue dips of 2008 and 2009.  That was cold comfort, however, to an industry still laboring to find a sustainable business model for the future.
In a year when most other media businesses rallied, advertising revenues at newspaper organizations continued to fall – roughly 6.3% for the year. That compares to a drop of 26% in 2009.¹
Print circulation also continued to decline, 5% daily and 4.5% Sunday year-to-year for the six-month period ending September 30. Losses in 2009 had been double that.²
Still, contrary to what those who have already written print’s obituary may think, newspapers generally were still operating in the black. Typical profit margins hovered around 5%.³ That, however, is less than a quarter of what they were in the industry’s glory years of the 1990s.
Online audience, though imprecisely measured, did grow some, and many papers can claim their overall audience is growing.
Most companies also saw improvements in digital revenues, especially if they diversified into non-newspaper digital ventures.
...But a survey of experiments at three dozen papers by Belden Interactive found that less than 1% of consumers on average are willing to subscribe, and some papers, such as those in Harlingen, Texas, and Sonoma, Calif., quickly restored free access.
http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/newspapers-essay