Today is the day the television listings in the daily paper died—at least at the New York Times which made this announcement in a small box in the back of the arts section. I’m stunned that the tv listings went before the stock listings. But never mind either way this is another example of the quandary that newspapers are in. Newspapers have attracted readers by bundling lots of stuff that at least some people want. The problem now is that a lot of that stuff is more readily available and useable from the Internet—who consults their daily newspaper anymore for the weather when instead of getting a many-hour old forecast you can go to any number of weather sites, or yesterday’s stock listings when you can find out what your favorite stock is trading at a few minutes ago.

Costs shrink as content does but so do readers. And with fewer readers it is harder to get advertisers to open their wallets. None of this is news to anyone but that little announcement in the Times today shows the slippery slope these old rags are on. So when will they finally save the forests that go into the stock listings?