In a 2006 study by Deutsche Bank study, it was found that if newpapers wanted to survive they would have to affiliate with online newspaper networks, along with either creating an online classified presence or partnering with others that already were in the game.
The industry has responded strongly and is being led by Cars.com which has surged in the first quarter of this year, reaching a high of 9 million unique visitors with 15 million overall visits in March - an increase of 17 percent over February. 
The Web business has over 200 newspapers and TV stations they partner with.
It's not just the increased traffic that's important, it's that visitors are also responding in record numbers in contacting dealers through various means, with leads growing by 20 percent year-over-year.
Job recruitment networks have also done well as they've enjoyed a increase across the board in the highly competitive market. All the big players have increased strongly from December to January with Monster, CareerBuilder and Yahoo HotJobs growing by a combined 9 million unique visitors in one month.
It also seems that the newspapers that are part of a network maintained their classified markets better than those that weren't affiliated with any network; for example, those newspapers affiliated with the CareerBuilder network were able to keep 57 percent of their markets, while those unassociated kept only 41 percent.
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