How about some success business models for newspapers?

PBS's Mark Glaser gives us a wonderful overview of "successful alternative business models" for newspapers. There are many ideas out there, some already successful. Is any one the perfect one? Not likely, but some show great promise.

I've long advocated special, niche content at a premium, the way the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel does with its wildly success Packer Plus magazine and online section (go to this page, scroll down to "Packer Plus Magazine" to see a listing of some of its content). Thousands of Packers fans, from throughout the country, pay at least $45 extra for access to this section -- and most think it's a bargain. It's a model I'd stretch into other areas, and ADVERTISE WHAT'S THERE. For example, you have to scroll two-thirds of the page just to find the listings of what you are missing, and this is already on a Packer coverage page. I'd get those stories higher.

I used to wax poetic about the intelligent way the JS was handling a columnist named Vicki Ortiz. She generally wrote two online-only blogs, then the paper ran a third as a column in the Weekend Cue section. It also ran online. I got hooked into going to her blogs by reading the printed column. I've often wondered why they didn't also cross-market by not putting her Friday column online. That would make me subscribe to the Friday paper if I liked the column. It's a model that works, so why not expand it.