'The advertising will set you free'

Despite initial reports that Chase Bank paid the New York Times $1 million to sponsor the New York Times iPad App for 60 days, it turns out that the bank paid less than half that.

As the iPad has a pretty small user base, that's still a fair whack, but the bigger picture is that it's a mere 0.02% of the companies revenue. No doubt the market will grow (the NYT had 78 million views on it's iPhone App in March) but will it ever replace the amount lost from print advertising?

Earnings at the NYT rose in Q4 2009, but that's only on the back or redundancies and a sale of assets. The online effect at quality papers like the Times is less journalists, working harder, worse stories and more unedited, unchecked PR.

Will the value of online advertising set new media free? No time soon anyway...