• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, June 16, 2009

Fifty years ago, owning a local TV station was a great business, according to Brian Buchwald, SVP, Local Integrated Media, NBC Universal. It was, in effect, “a license to print money,” he said. Yet, the Internet has put that model back on its heals, he admits.

“With audiences fragmenting, it’s important to find them on those new platforms,” he said. “The bigger focus is on figuring out what people what … What people care about in New York, relative to L.A.,” etc.

Overall, the local online ad business is presently worth a little over $1 billion, according to Gordon Borrell, CEO, Borrell Associates, Inc.

“Hiring” is not a word ABC News tends to use much these days, admits Paul Slavin, SVP, Digital, ABC News. Instead, he said, “We have retrained and reenergized people.”

“We don’t discourage anybody who wants to play in the space,” Slavin added.

Regarding monetization for online news publishers, Slavin said: “You can monetize very specific areas (like weather),” which he says pays for other areas that can’t be monetized (like investigative reporting), but which are critically important to a publisher’s brand.