Preston is correct but the web needs to find an economic model

Peter Preston maintains in this morning's Observer that despite all the bad news coming out of the newspaper industry we should be looking at the figures for website hits.

Yet look at the latest ABC-sanctified unique user totals for Fleet Street websites. The Guardian up to almost 26 million, a 41 per cent rise in a year, and breaking 10 million UK users for the first time; the Telegraph on 23.3 million, up 109 per cent; the Mail at 21.2 million, up 57 per cent; the Times on 20.5 million, up 65 per cent; even the Independent, at 8.4 million, up 93 per cent.

The figures are good,they show people engaged with the news but the problem is that the web on its own will not bring economic salvation beacause as yet the business model doesn't work