A newspaper on the lawn, or one bought on the way to work, is a daily thing for millions of readers. Weekend newspapers are huge, with supplements and extras that make entertaining reading. When you think of the value you are getting for the cover price, it can be overwhelming, but we have grown used to what we get.

What does your couple of bucks get you?

+ News

+ Weather forecasts

+ Puzzles

+ TV guide and cable guide and radio guide

+ Classified ads for everything from cars to jobs to real estate

+ Commercial ads that inform and amaze and persuade

+ Editorials and opinions in the form of columns

+ Advice and how-tos

+ Recipes and food critiques

+ Music and literature and film reviews

+ Interior and exterior design advice

+ Opportunities to express ourselves in letters and polls

+ Analysis of politics and legislation

+ Analysis of markets and trends in the financial world

... and more.

Does your two bucks really pay for all that? Of course not - but you knew that.

Large and small newspapers all over the world have reaped profits for a number of years, and it was not the money people paid to buy them that did it. Circulation (or numbers of papers sold and paid for) is not where the main income lies, although it's nice money sometimes.

Advertising is the bread and butter (and jam) in the written medium called newspapers. Without advertising, none of it would happen in the first place. The advertising dollar is probably the most powerful dollar in the world. It makes the media world go round.

And it's started to slow. Oh oh.

Since the advent of the internet, all the items you see in the list above are available for free on the Internet. Not only that - the choice is staggering. Who can buy 75 daily papers and compare the contents and comments? Not many. But on the internet, you could do that in a morning (if your boss wasn't looking, that is). I personally compare the cover pages and headlines of about a dozen each day. I don't even have to confine myself to my area or even my country. The world's headlines are at my disposal and I take my pick.

The magic is that no one need even confine themselves to newspaper sites to get news, weather, opinion, sport (hey... I forgot sport in the list above. Typical!) fashion or cuisine. Radio and television stations are also putting their stuff online and it's also free. So choose your favourite layout and your favourite flavour, and your news can be your homepage. A different one for weekends, too, in any language you like.

Circulation has dropped for most of the world's newspapers. This fact of life is making media moguls sit up and take notice, scratch their heads and come out with pronouncements that sometimes surprise if not baffle. We know what's happening... they know what's happening. People are buying less newspapers. Which means circulation figures are down.

Advertisers depend on circulation figures to target their ads. They are crucial. When circulation goes down, they pull back on ads. Some pull right back. Not only that. Ads on the internet are now getting popular because they can be targetted too. And keyworded. Wow - that means close targetting. Real close.

What does this all mean?

We face the disappearance of some newspapers. I do not think they will all vanish, but the ones that depend solely on advertising will be the ones to go first. They are already suffering. Still, we did not lose the button when the zip was invented, did we?

Some will survive. They will service those to whom the feel, smell, purpose, usefulness and tradition of newsprint is very important. But a lot of the readership will migrate to the electronic forms of media. The podcasting set, the online reading set... they will forget there ever was any other way.

You will still see the odd punter with a rolled up sport section form guide, having a bet on the horses at the local betting shop, of course. You will still see some granny wrapping up her tea leaves and left overs in newspaper to put them in the bin. You will still see some diehard doing the daily crossword on the train.

But the threat is still there. There will be fewer papers, and their price will go right up.