News sites or ad sites?

It is well known that newspapers have a hard time charging for online content. So advertising is of course a vital part of the business model for the web sites of traditional newspapers. But the question is if ads are taking over the entire sites of the dailies? See below the screen shots of four of the leading Nordic dailies: Dagens Naeringsliv (Norway), Jyllandsposten (Denmark), Berlingske Tidene (Denmark) and Aftonbladet (Sweden). You can hardly determine what the breaking news are by looking at the screen, without scrolling.

dn-no-forside

jyllandsposten

berlingske

ab-ettan

Updated: The explanation can be found in this graphic of the state of online “journalism”.

Update 2: Kenneth Lay Milling follows up and looks at several other Danish news sites and concludes that in general 80-90 percent of the screen is covered by ads.

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