This website is in the business and financial news business. So are a number of other online financial sites like SeekingAlpha, TheBigMoney, ClusterStock, and Minyanville. Just a few years ago, none of these operations existed.

Last year, advertising pages in tradition business magazine like BusinessWeek and Forbes were down by double digits. With the recession deepening and marketers pulling back, 2009 may not be any better.

On TV, there are now two business channels, CNBC and Fox, which is barely a year old and has horrible audience numbers. So far. But CNBC is owned by GE (NYSE:GE) and Fox is owned by News Corp (NYSE:NWS). That means both are likely to be around for a long time. They both compete against Bloomberg TV.

In the news service business, Bloomberg, Reuters, and the AP all have large financial reporting operations. In the newspaper business, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times compete for readers.

Lest you say that this post is just a bunch of names typed onto a page, consider that the economic downturn will not support all of these media. Advertising will disappear. Perhaps more frightening, as people pull money out of the stock market, the interest in investing will drop. As investment professionals are fired, they may drop out of the business news consumption population as well.

Who may not make it? The traditional business magazines publish on weekly or fortnightly cycles. That is too long a time between articles in a world where the web delivers information in real time. They may not get enough readers on the internet to offset sales lost in print.

One thing for certain. A number of the operations with their names in this piece won't be here in 2010.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 237wallst.com.

How much of the business press will disappear? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.