On-line advertising revenues are rising dramatically -- they were more than 17 billion dollars in the United States last year, with 4 billion going to newspapers, according to Vin Crosbie of Borrell Associates. But on-line media produce 20 to 100 times less revenue per reader than newspapers do, he said. To put it another way, for every print reader lost, newspapers have to replace them with between 20 and 100 website readers to gain the same revenue.

"We need to make the revenues we earn from on-line readers equal or more than what we earned from the people who no longer read us in print," said Mr Crosbie, who conceded this was an enormous task.

Other speakers echoed Mr Crosbie, particularly when it comes to classified advertising. Jim Chisholm, Strategy Advisor to the World Association of Newspapers, said the movement of classified advertising from print to on-line was accelerating rapidly worldwide.

"We are seeing fantastic growth in on-line classifieds, but it is not enough to make up for the money lost from print classifieds," said Mr Chisholm, who directs the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project, which has been tracking the migration of classified advertisements from print to on-line for the past three years.

While there is no doubt that newspapers must develop their on-line operations -- and much of the conference was devoted to these strategies, and how successful companies implement them -- others see value in building the print franchise.

Take the Arizona Republic, a Gannett publication which is following an "audience aggregation" strategy that calls for aggressive expansion of both print and on-line products.

The flagship newspaper is complemented with new supplements, niche and community newspapers and magazines, both free and paid, as well as an array of on-line products, to reach many different segments of the market.

"This is a powerful approach to building total audience, building audience difficult to reach with our core newspaper, but it does not diminish our commitment to producing the finest daily newspapers possible, nor does it diminish our efforts to continue to actively support and grow readership of the daily product," said Publisher John Zidich.

Newspaper executives must also guard against overreacting to anecdotal information that tends to exaggerate the impact of the internet on newspaper operations, said Gavin O’Reilly, Chief Operating Officer of Dublin-based Independent News & Media and President of the World Association of Newspapers.

Mr O’Reilly urged participants -- a record 480 from 75 countries -- to check the facts and reject the myths that are fuelling belief that the internet is threatening newspapers.

"There is not a shred of empirical evidence, here or in the USA, or in Scandinavia, or the Far East, to confirm that the internet per se is damaging newspaper circulations," he said. "Indeed, a recent study by WAN demonstrated that those newspapers with strong web activities were actually the ones that were showing circulation growth."

As audience and effectiveness research becomes more sophisticated, there is a growing understanding that the attributes and unique qualities of print cannot be duplicated by other media. Delegates at the conference were treated to several presentations that demonstrated that advertisers should look beyond just circulation and readership for the value that newspapers provide.

For example, studies in France show that newspapers are far superior to other media in terms of the quality of their audience, the loyalty they demonstrate to the paper, their acceptance of advertising messages and other attributes.

"This is not a French exception. It is the same elsewhere for print media," said Luciano Bosio, Managing Director for Marketing, Research and Strategy for Publiprint.

Summaries of all presentations at the conference, held last week in Paris and organized by WAN, can be found  here.

Upcoming: The 59th World Newspaper Congress, 13th World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2006, the global meetings of the world’s press, to be held in Moscow, Russia from 4 to 7 June next. Full details at www.moscow2006.com.

The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 73 national newspaper associations, newspapers and newspaper executives in 102 countries, 11 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups.

Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 7 rue Geoffroy St Hilaire, 75005 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr.