Newspaper Web sites captured 27 percent of local online advertising in 2007, according to a recent study by Borrell Associates.

Unfortunately, the total was 36 percent in 2006. Internet pure plays grabbed 50 percent of total share, followed by local TV stations and yellow pages at 9.5 percent each and local radio at 2 percent.

It’s possible only to speculate about the loss of market share, but the speculation has some experience behind it. Some of those possibilities include:

- Media parents who limit online resource growth due to print profit declines.

- The lack of contextual advertising on newspaper sites and their heavy reliance on banner campaigns.
More attractive response rates of contextual advertising from the likes of Google and Yahoo.

- The ability of Google, Yahoo and others to provide automated services with their contextual advertising, which allows them to provide low-cost campaigns that appeal to small businesses. My Caribbean travel guide at www.Caribeez.com survives on a $50 a month Google advertising budget. My online account executives at my former newspaper companies could not sell $50 a month banner contracts because the campaigns couldn’t cover their labor costs and commissions.

- The rapid growth of Internet start-ups dedicated to content such as health, travel, recreation, entertainment, classifieds and other product categories that used to be dominated by newspapers. On the print side, we used to call them “ankle biters.”

- The decline of print-to-Web classified up-sells, which undermines the profit performance of online operations and restricts their resource growth.

Broadcast and newspaper companies may see the Internet as the means of making up for their revenue and profit shortfalls, but it’s a moot point if they lose online market share. This is hardly good news at a time of little good news for the industry.