Tribune Company's CEO and chief operating officer last week announced sweeping staff and content cuts, with plans to shed 500 pages of news each week from the company's dozen newspapers, leaving 50 percent for content, and 50 percent for advertising – not counting classified and special ad sections. Is a thinner, more ad-heavy newspaper “the best financial model for an industry that is enduring a painful contraction with no end in sight?” The New York Times reported Monday.

Moreover, the idea that advertising will take up most of the newspaper (if ad sections are counted) while there is less staff needing to be paid makes sense on financial balance sheets, but is it a winner when it comes to keeping readers? When news can be accessed for free on a newspaper's Web site, will readers want to pay for advertising, accompanied by a few news stories, many of which are already updated on the newspaper's Web site?

If subscribers notice more ads and less news on their doorstep each morning, will they renew their subscriptions?

There is no consensus among analysts and executives on whether this new model will work, but they all agree that despite a wide variety of past approaches, U.S. newspapers are all in trouble, The New York Times reported.

However, it must be said that U.S. newspapers, not just Tribune Co. papers, are slimming down, aiming for sleeker looks, more advertising and less staff. Tribune Chairman and CEO Sam Zell is just taking an “accelerated” approach – ripping off the Band Aid quickly and not wasting time by slowly trimming staff, coverage and making up for broader coverage with a more localised approach.

“This is going to happen quickly,” Randy Michaels, the Tribune Co.'s chief operating officer said last week of the changes. Zell, responding to Michaels on the same conference call last week said: “I promise you he's underestimating the level of aggressiveness with which we are attacking this whole challenge.”

At The Los Angeles Times, news content will be cut by 82 pages each week, while smaller Tribune titles, such as The Hartford Courant and The Baltimore Sun, could see smaller cuts, The New York Times reported.

Zell and Michaels may see a difference in savings and earnings in the short term, but what about long-term effects of thinner papers with more ad space and retreating news and analysis – the reason the newspaper exists in the first place? Will readers feel they are being duped?

Michaels said last week that based on volume produced per reporter, many are not doing enough and will barely be missed. Mike Simonton, senior director at Fitch Ratings in Chicago, home of Tribune's flagship The Chicago Tribune, told The New York Times that most readers would barely notice the less news, more ads approach, or the fact that staff bylines are being replaced by those from news services. However, if this approach is taken past a certain point, it “could accelerate the migration of readers to the Web or other sources of news.”

It's a fine line to walk and the balancing act of keeping readers, and therefore advertisers, happy, is one that goes hand-in-hand. Newspapers around the world can watch Zell lead the Tribune down this path, adding new insight and information as they choose the best strategies that will help them adapt to challenges now, and in the future.