I thought I'd have a look at Gannett's numbers to see if they reflected the same percentages of revenues as McClatchy's. It's harder to tell from Gannett's 2006 annual report, because they still put newspaper and online revenue together under the heading of newspaper revenue.

But Gannett chief Craig Dubow did reveal in his preamble to last year's annual report that

"our digital revenues for 2006 surpassed $400 million, substantial growth over 2005".

Now that really does sound like a big number. Until you realize just how big Gannett is. Advertising revenues from newspapers (which includes online) was $5.37 billion. Revenue from circulation was $1.3 billion. So $400 million is 5.99% of revenue (excluding broadcast and other).

But maybe it's growing really quickly...

Well you couldn't find out by listening to the Q2 results conference call with Craig Dubow. Amazingly, neither Dubow, who is chairman, CEO, president, the lot, of Gannett and Gracia Martore, the CFO, had an answer to the only question worth asking at the typically mind-numbing conference call. The guy who asked it, Fred Searby from JP Morgan, wanted to know how online had grown in the newspaper revenue figures and whether it had slowed down. Now Martore who could tell another analyst about a piece of land in McLean and how its sale affected the quarter's results, claimed not to have the figures to hand. Are you serious? For a business transforming itself into a digital or platform agnostic local media business, the progress of revenue by platforms, particularly new ones, is probably central to the success or failure of the company's strategy. My guess is that senior people lie awake at night thinking about it.

Anyway, fortunately for Gannett they have the efficient Tara Connell in the press office and she emailed me the numbers. Online revenues are 5% and grew by 17%.

How interesting...