Internet Advertising a Boon for Print Media

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For 95 years, Successful Farming magazine has carried advertisements touting the latest rodent killer or toy farm equipment. Now those ads are running alongside pitches for Web sites such as XSAg.com, an agrochemical auction site, and DirectAg.com, which sells seeds over the Internet.

At the onset of the Web revolution, traditional print publications were expected to be the most natural victims as consumers and advertisers flocked to the new medium. Instead, a surge in advertising by Internet companies has been an unexpected boon for newspapers and magazines.

At Meredith Corp., which owns Successful Farming, revenue from dot-com companies "has gone from almost not on the radar screen to probably 5 percent" of total advertising since the …