Briefing - The Future of Newspapers?

The Dallas Morning News has recently launched a new free paper called Briefing. The paper is a single section in traditional broadsheet format. It is distributed free to high income households who do not subscribe to the "full" newspaper. In some ways it is similar to The Examiner paper distributed in Baltimore and other communities. My feeling is this new product could be the future of newspapers.

However, that should not be taken as a compliment. This might be a very bad future indeed.

Why I say that:

1. A single section could be the sustainable size of even a major metro paper before long. Advertisers already dramatically prefer section A over other sections, with the metro or local sections following behind. Sports and ancillary sections are nearly devoid of advertising. Since content follows advertising it isn't much of a stretch to imagine that a paper could atrophy to that level. Most of the smaller community newspapers already are single sections.
2. Subscription revenue is trivial compared to advertising, so free distribution makes some sense. In most cases the subscription revenue more or less offsets printing and distribution. By maximizing the use of distribution resources, it might be more economical to just push the thing to nearly everyone instead of choosing the houses to which the product is delivered. Driving and time likely dominate the distribution expense and "bombing" an entire neighborhood doesn't increase this cost. It will either end up this way, or as a fairly high subscription value. Further raising subscription fees seems a fools errand given the number of people that already don't find enough value in the product.
3. Newspapers still don't understand consumer needs or advertiser measurement. To them, extending the reach of the paper is the right decision, even if no one reads it. Its pretty likely to lower the already tenuous value proposition, but from a pure reach standpoint it seems right.
4. Classified revenue is tanking quickly, and it might not be worth printing anymore. The Tribune has already dramatically cut some editions in major metros. It's just far less efficient to look through liners even when compared to the ultra basic Craigslist.

I honestly don't think that Briefing will be a disaster. I just think it portends a very dangerous, and much "smaller" future for newspapers. It just might be the one that every major metro needs to retool to be, not just produce.