Attractive and realistic web news business models are emerging with profit potential that seems plausible. Granted, nobody's making much money at this yet, but some stations are committing to arrangements with profitable projections. Time Warner's merger with AOL may have motivated some broadcasters to consider an Internet strategy more seriously. There's also the sense that competition may no longer be just the other stations in a market. On the web, it may be the local newspaper or an entrepreneurial local gossip.
Recent research tends to confirm some of the fears.
For example, a study this year by Frank N. Magid Associates suggests that local television news viewers use the web, but don't visit TV station web sites much. Help is here for radio and television web sites. New commercial services have emerged to make web development simple, often at little or no cost to a station but with new revenue potential. These commercial services create web pages for stations, enhance local stories, stream video, create searchable archives, or train staff to create web news. It's difficult to classify these new web news services.