I was talking to a “newspaper insider” the other day about the convergence of media and the somewhat incestuous relationship between metro newspapers, radio stations, and television stations. In our market, the Indianapolis Star has tried to create as many new online properties as they have new print properties in the last few years. (See my “Why Newspapers Are Dying a Slow, Painful Death” post)

I asked a simple question, “why don’t television stations feel threatened by their newspaper ‘partners’?”

The answer I got was a bit surprising.

“Television is already there, newspapers are running from where they are…they want to be television stations.”

He pointed out that in markets where one company owns all three mediums (TV, radio, newspapers), the television stations are the cash cow, radio stations break even, and newspapers lose money. In the example he used in Columbus, Ohio, the newspaper is actually being shut down because it is losing so much money.

Given this, he revealed that the Indianapolis Star’s goal is to eliminate the print product completely by 2013. No more print?

Last month they “redesigned” the paper to use a narrower font, narrower broadsheet, and supposedly “easier to read” type. In other words, they put their presses on a diet and cut about 10% of their paper costs. The business section is now a 4-page flyer with a few business classifieds and some stock prices. Signs of a struggling newspaper business are everywhere and they are trying to mask it by waving shiny objects at us like we’re infants.

“Look over here Tommy, it’s a new website!”

“Lookie over here Tommy, it’s IndyMoms.com!”

“Heeeerrrrreeee’s a big puppy, Tommy. You like puppies? Go to IndyPaws.com like a good boy.”

You might be making money online, even faster than you thought. But in the long run, if you eliminate print, you’ll be doomed. You are selling online ads ‘better’ because you have a relationship with your print customers and they want something that works. Simple. Your newspaper ads never have and never will do what the online ads can do: generate and quantify leads.

I think Gannett is fattening up the IndyStar.com “Walton-family-sized” offering of print and Internet products to sell to a radio empire, like Emmis. Television giants won’t touch a newspaper, but radio has the need to grow and they already survived the streaming media tidal wave in the late 1990’s. Without a strong Internet video strategy and the paradigm fixed in the public mind that the newspaper will report on what we do, newspapers have too far to go spread too thin as it is.

Give up the print and newspapers will die. Jot this prediction down.