'Analog Dollars to Digital Dimes' a False Comparison?

Vivek's comments are right on.
Unfortunately he's coming from the ad-supported content creation model (publishing) which is currently being severely challenged by the Internet.
If the world of publishing is looking for a business model, try this one:
No more "aggregate and aggravate". Meaning stop thinking about aggregating an audience with your content and then interrupting them with an ad. Instead, create unique content that can be delivered through a sponsor brand's own website. That way brands can attract their own audiences, without any competitive clutter.
Here's how we see it working. The brand pays for the content directly from the publisher. The more engaging, relevant, and exclusive the content to that brand, the more publishers can charge for it.
Imagine this: Visa's website becomes the exclusive online source for People Magazine. So if you want People's content, you gotta visit Visa. Being online, the Visa site carries the repurposed print articles, plus video and audio as well. Which means more audience engagement. The Visa site can even offer exclusive print content not in the magazine.
So Visa now attracts a few million views a month that are a click away from acting on a promo or a program or a purchase. These kind of online visitors are much more valuable than readers of an ad in magazine. If owning the whole magazine is too pricey, then Visa might only buy the exclusivity of certain sections of People, like StyleWatch or StarTracks.
The point is, we believe that running a brand's ad in the middle of someone elses content is less desirable than running someone elses content on a brands website. We'll take one online viewer over 50 offline readers any day. We'd love to hear Vivek's view of how this business model might be priced.

Jim Courtright
Big Thinking By The Hour, Inc.
jc@bigthinkingbythehour.com

Putting an advertiser's site "on the same page" as the consumer's content is not a sea-change - or really any change at all. What needs to happen is what we've media critics have talked about for years - the elimination of the difference between advertising and content.

Speaking of advertising and content - how about the placement for Aquafina?

The time spent issue is huge.

If the bottom line issue is "how to effectively advertise and stop bothering viewers with irrelevant ads" then maybe a solution to this would be: publishers NOT allowing a certain type of advertising on their site and limiting space only for relevant ads. Yes yes, Im sure some alarm bells just rang. What about the fact that publishers live on ad revenue and the fact that advertisers would be limiting their span of reach?
Well, think about it, users are getting smarter. They 'know' where and how to get their information. And don't we all say 'its a buyers market' and the 'customer is king'? The above example of People magazine ads on the Visa site is exactly that. I think the next model would be to let people know where to find you vs. to be everywhere and get lost in the crowd or aggravate your potential customers.
The question here would be 'how do you determine what's relevant' and how do you then reach the users who wouldn't visit those 'expected sites'. Back to PR? Food for thought...