Here's one way to solve the dearth of advertising for newspapers—just get rid of that pesky stuff altogether and charge readers an extra $5 an issue. This is what the Chicago Tribune may be planning, according to a story in the Chicago Reader, which got its hands on an ad-free dummy copy of the new paper.
The Tribune appears to be giving up, to a small extent, on advertising as the main source of revenue supporting content. Called the Five Star project, the Tribune is emulating Rupert Murdoch's approach to online newspapers by making them all pay supported. Except with Five Star, the Tribune is giving up on advertising supporting print products and asking readers to pay for all of the content instead. Read the full article. (More Chicago Tribune stories.)