According to ABM’s recent Business Information Network numbers, b-to-b industry revenue posted a significant increase in 2011, up 7.2 percent to $26.5 billion. The growth was across every product category tracked, with digital up 22 percent, data services up 6.5 percent and even print beating out trade shows in growth (3.8 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.

But despite those encouraging numbers, “advertising” is starting to become a dirty word in the investment community. “What I find a little surprising is the more general negativity toward all advertising-supported businesses – print and digital,” wrote former ALM CEO Bill Pollak in a recent blog post. “These savvy investors believe that the upheaval in the advertising business has only just begun, and will swamp traditional carriers of branded print or banner advertising.”

Meanwhile, The Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism recently offered a gloomy forecast, claiming that media is only picking up one new digital dollar for every seven that it loses in print ad sales.

Paid content is one of the solutions to evolving beyond an advertising-driven business. Brian Morrissey at Digiday wrote, “Paul Rossi, managing director of the Americas for The Economist, told me ‘it’s suicide’ for publishers to not charge online. The reason: The online ad system simply cannot support high-quality journalism. The Economist gets $70 CPMs in print and $30-20 online. Rossi isn’t the only one who is clear-eyed about this. Martin Sorrell has said as much, and he’s the head of one of the largest ad-buying firms in the world.”

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