Pimp my paper

People might be unwilling to pay for journalism, but sex still sells. So when Craigslist gave up erotic ads last month (the same Craigslist blamed for stealing classifieds from newspapers), revenue-starved alternative weeklies made their move.

Wired magazine reports:

After the [Craigslist] announced last month under pressure that it would no longer publish erotic ads, sales of erotic ads in local alternative weekly newspapers have soared, according to the Washington City Paper.

The paper reports its own sales of adult ads was up 38 percent in the first week of May as criticism against Craigslist was heating up, compared to the same time last year. Minneapolis’ City Pages says its adult ad sales have almost doubled. And SF Weekly in San Francisco had 160 adult ads the week before Craigslist’s policy went into affect but clocked in with 910 ads last week.

So how much does an ad offering to, say, "put you to bed backdoor" cost?

An adult-services ad in the Washington City Paper starts at $150 per week. The Chicago Reader charges $50 for online-only ads; $100 for online and print. Craigslist, by contrast, charged only $5 until it was forced to implement its manual monitoring of ads. It now charges $10 for ads placed in its adult category.