For years, radio and newspapers were arch-competitors for local ad dollars, each delivering their unique audience to advertisers. And for the longest time both media did well.

Then came the big crunch, driven by myriad forces: declining local advertising, compounded by a weakened economy, the arrival of the internet, increased competition for fewer ad dollars, and shifting consumer tastes, to name just a few.

Both radio and newspapers took beatings.

But some good is coming out of all that in the form of new media configurations that would have been unimaginable just a decade ago.

In some small markets, radio stations are moving into the newspaper business, quite literally, beefing up their coverage of local news and posting those stories on their web sites. In many cases they are doing so in response to newsroom cutbacks by the area’s dailies.

Listeners are responding.

“There is no better way to ensure thorough delivery of comprehensive, immediate, local news than to combine radio newscasts with an online newspaper carrying the full story for immediate reference,” says Tom Davis, president of Davis Media, which owns adult contemporary WTYD and classical WBQK in Williamsburg, Va.

“The cause and effect between inspiring content and web clicks is practically audible.”

Davis is talking about the Williamsburg-Yorktown Daily, the site he launched two years ago in response to cutbacks in local coverage by the area’s two major dailies, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, based 50 miles to the north, and the Daily Press of Newport News to the south. Longtime readers were unhappy.

Williamsburg is a growing, affluent market with no lack of local news. Says Davis: “A market this size generates plenty of news for a daily,” he says.

The results are impressive. In just over two years of promoting the site on-air, Davis reports there are already more than 63,000 regular readers in the Williamsburg area with more signing up every day.

Katie Gambill, vice president and general manager of Saga Communications' six-station cluster in Clarksville, Tenn., seized a similar opportunity this past spring, again responding to cutbacks in coverage by the local daily, the 200-year-old The Leaf Chronicle.

Gambill launched Clarksvillenow.com, a local news site, and just at the right time, as the local river flooded over its banks and left much of Clarksville underwater. Panicked residents flocked to the site. It drew 50,000 unique visitors, nearly one out of every four residents, just days after its debut , reports Gambill.

Gambill hired two print reps to sell ads, and she says the site is already tapping into print budgets. “Most of the site’s advertisers are people who are not on the radio.”

In Pittsburgh, a different sort of synergy has emerged, a partnership between the sports department at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and a new sports-talk station, KDKA-FM.

The idea for the station came from CBS Radio market manager Michael Young.

With two sports-talk stations already in the market, Young needed a way to make his new station stand out, and one idea was to bring on Post-Gazette columnist Ron Cook as a member of his on-air team. That would require permission from the paper.

“When we approached the newspaper they liked the idea of an even broader-based partnership,” says Young.

That led to a content-swapping arrangement between the paper’s site and that of KDKA-FM.

On the Post-Gazette’s online sports page there’s a “Listen Live Now” button where readers can listen to the station, and the station carries the paper’s sports headlines. Young says more content deals will follow.

“It’s good for them and for us, but most importantly we are trying to make the partnership great for the user,” he says.

In time, Young envisions potentially working together on sales initiatives. “We might be able to present joint ventures with sponsorship options.”