From time to time, readers will question why there is so much advertising in the newspaper. Wouldn't the reader find it more convenient for all the news and advertising to be separated into their own sections?

Reader Lottie McAteer posed such a query after I asked for constructive suggestions in last week's column.

"Your reporting of news on the front page is very good," she wrote. "I do not understand why over 50 percent of the rest of the 'A' section is taken up with furniture, mattress, etc., advertisements which have no relation to the 'main' news section of your Sunday paper. Could your news staff find more news and create a separate section for ads for furniture, etc., as in your Friday edition which has a section dedicated to automobiles and on Sunday's section for sale of homes?"

Then she remarked that she could then enjoy the news without having to wade through the ads.

"We would like to think of your newspaper as a place to read the news," she wrote.

I've received similar comments — and occasional cracks about The Advertiser "living up to its name" because of so much advertising — and it gives me an opportunity to explain a little bit about how advertising works.

As readers may know, revenue for newspapers comes from two sources: those who advertise with us and those who buy our paper through home delivery and single-copy sales. Advertising covers about 80 percent of newspaper costs throughout the newspaper industry. In other words, without advertising, we wouldn't be able to produce a newspaper, run our online site or pay the reporters, photographers and editors who put the stories together.

Sunday is the highest circulation newspaper of the week and the first section of the newspaper — the A section — has the highest readership and therefore it is the section that advertisers covet most. On the day McAteer wrote us, the first section of the newspaper contained eight full-page ads in the first 20 pages. While it may be annoying to some readers, it is also the sign of a healthy newspaper and of a strong ad sales force doing its job.

It is also a sign of a news staff that develops interesting and extensive local coverage. I cannot imagine advertisers wanting to be part of a newspaper that people don't want to read.

While we have accepted more ads into the first section, we do have limits. We reserve a certain amount of space for longer news stories that tend to appear on Sundays when readers have more leisure time to peruse the paper.

And while we know that some are more likely to look for Longs Drugs and Don Quijote supplements than the sections that are contained within them, the reality is that advertisers want to be where the news is located.

For instance, most newspapers did not accept front-page advertisements until recently. Now it's practically the norm. Our advertising team has come up with creative ways to have ads placed onto pages that are well read and popular. It's up to the news side, however, to decide where those ads can be placed and what size we will accept.

McAteer's suggestion that we create numerous sections out of advertising would be like television showing uninterrupted programming for 30 minutes and then 30 minutes of advertising. It's a clear bet that many would tune out of the advertising segment and wait for the next program. Readers know when they pick up the newspaper or watch television that they are going to get a blend of both.

It's true that real estate ads are contained in a Homes section on Sunday that lists open houses and homes for sale, but this is a specialty section that Advertiser readers generally know will contain minimal news content. The same goes for our Cars section.

I believe we have an appropriate balance between news and advertising, and though it might be tempting for the news junkies to want to dispense with the ads, they are essential to showcasing the products our businesses have to offer and to help pay for the journalism we produce every day.