Alan Mutter thinks this year may see the end of two-newspaper towns:

Although there aren’t many two-newspaper towns left in the United States, the few remaining No. 2 papers are the least likely to get out of 2009 alive.

While we would think about Melbourne and Sydney as our two-newspaper towns, in regional Australia there are plenty more with strong local dailies.  From the data I see, the local newspapers seem to be faring the best.  This supports overseas trends – local is better, people like to read about themsleves and their own baackyard.

Newsagencies are local businesses yet we do not embrace this as well as we could.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, had some interesting things to say to Fortune magazine’s Adam Lashinsky when interviewd about the future of newspapers and whether Google could “save” them.  The opening question sets the tone of the piece:

Is there some grand gesture Google can make to solve the newspaper industry’s problems?
It’s not obvious what the grand gesture would be. Google can’t make the cost of newsprint go down. We also can’t materially change the way consumers behave, and consumers are in fact moving their lives online. We have been able to send clicks to their Web sites, which they can monetize. So that provides some revenue. The problem is that doesn’t provide enough revenue to offset the loss of the other revenue.

The interveiw is interesting because Schmidt makes it clear he wants news brands to survive, to provide content, but thinks the print model is losing the fight and doesn’t know what to do to save it.  Lashinsky has posted a follow up to the story.  Chris Snyder weighs in at the Wired blog network.

We are insulated, for the moment, from newspaper challenges here in Australia because of our smaller marketplace and the different newspaper distribution system.  However, we have kidded ourselves for too long into thinking that the US and European troubles for newspapers will never happen here.

But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if TheNew York Times goes out of business—like, this May?

Michael Hirschorn poses this question in an article published a couple of days ago in the Atlantic magazine.  But rather than concentrating on the closure of a print operastion, Hirschorn looks at life beyond. 

This is what we should be thinking about, life beyond print or at least with a significantly changed print media product mix.  Newsagents give over between 25% and 50% of their retail real-estate to print.  In some cases, the monthly rental for this space is upwards of $10,000.  Do we have a fall-back (disaster) plan if, say, 25%, 50% or more of the revenue coming from this space disappears.

If the newspaper challenges in the US start to appear here, and some say they are already, we need a plan – just as we need a plan should our businesses be hit by any disaster.