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All of those deals Yahoo made with newspaper publishers seem to be yielding positive results for the world of print media. We have noted previously that Yahoo's power duo of Sue Decker and Hilary Schneider have some history associated with newspapers. Decker has been a newspaper stock analyst, while Schneider worked for Knight Ridder Digital in the time before McClatchy snapped up the newspaper side of that publisher.

Those deals for classifieds and other services provided by Yahoo for newspaper websites received a glowing review from Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Ginocchio. Newsosaur blogger Alan Mutter cited the analyst on an upbeat projection for the newspaper industry, fueled by deals with Yahoo:

“In our top-down industry model, we've been expecting industry revenue growth to turn positive around 2010-2011, with EBITDA growth turning positive a year later,” says Paul Ginocchio, the Deutsche Bank securities analyst who thinks the Yahoo partnership could rally the gloomy industry.

Given the early positive online sales performance of the newspapers collaborating with Yahoo, “we believe this deal could move ahead by a year or more the inflection point where online revenue gains offset print declines,” says Paul.

One of the brightest spots for papers comes from banner ad revenue. According to Ginocchio, that could grow as much as 50 percent for papers participating in Yahoo's plans.

Combine that with the sales activities at Yahoo's partner papers, who sell HotJobs classifieds and other online advertising to their local customers, and Ginocchio sees potential online sales gains of 40 percent annually from 2008 to 2010.

If that happens, and offsets the persistent decline in print ad revenues at newspapers, Yahoo could end up saving a few publishers from the chopping block, in Ginocchio's view.