The Guardian, which is owned by the non-profit organisation The Scott Trust, has seen its circulation numbers drop as its Web traffic soars

To get to the point of returning to profitability, titles worldwide are being forced to shed journalists and pull away from any idea that may not be instantly profitable. That includes experimenting with different ways of utilising the Web. In America this is particularly evident at large metropolitan titles.

"Monopolies get fat and lazy, and part of what the Internet done to them -- the ongoing digital revolution has done -- is introduce them to serious competition for the first time," said Neil McIntosh, head of editorial development at The Guardian's Web presence, guardian.co.uk.

McIntosh, who in early 2009 is moving to The Wall Street Journal as an online editor, said that U.K. titles -- and particularly those in London -- are better equipped to weather this digital revolution-turned-recession.

Because of that, they are able to expand their Web presence because they've dealt with steep competition from the beginning. This is a result of coming up in a culture of heavy competition and being built around that, which means employing fewer people and not living beyond their means.

The business model actually is fine. Or it's not as broken as the expense model.

That idea is central to the argument advanced by many that the journalism industry's business model has failed. McIntosh disagrees, believing that the business model, while not perfect, remains intact.

"I think it's a really good idea to separate the business model, which is the way business makes money, from its expense model," McIntosh said. "If you are a monopoly in a large city, you can afford to employ 1,000 or 1,200 journalists to produce often enormous papers, plus loads of advertising and all the rest.

"But then you say we're gonna lay off half of your journalists and you say, 'oh it's the death of the business model.' No, it's not. The business model actually is fine. Or it's not as broken as the expense model."

Like The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian is not a public company with shareholders. Instead it draws its funding from The Scott Trust, a British nonprofit organisation. Some will argue that because of it, The Guardian is able to take greater chances and are afforded greater opportunities to push ahead in the digital realm.

"The Scott Trust is a magnificent institution that allows (The Guardian) to do things that we couldn't do," said Marcus Warren, of The Daily Telegraph. "But perhaps in some ways it might actually deter them from making radical changes."

A key part of The Guardian's online push are its audio and video features, which McIntosh says have seen large increases in usage in the last two years."We've only been doing video about a year, but we've seen video go from about 213 video views per month this time last year to 1.5 million this month," McIntosh said. "The site is doing a very nice 25 percent year on year growth; the video has just gone like that.

"It's fairly stunning. Audio is doing great; multimedia is looking really healthy; and in terms of advertising for it as well, the commercial guys feel pretty confident about it despite what's happening to the economy," McIntosh said.