Alternative weekly newspapers reach a younger demographic. They provide many things to the younger demographics that they don't get from their local "establishment" newspaper. They offer a strong focus on entertainment, including movie reviews, new music reviews, concert listings, local nightclub information, and restaurant reviews. 

  It's not hard to see why some advertisers find this format compelling, especially businesses in the entertainment and restaurant categories.

  Traditional advertisers may be a bit squeamish about the possibility of their ads running next to those of adult-oriented businesses who often run in the alternative weekly papers.

Advantages

• Weeklies usually are distributed free throughout a city.
• Most are free, readers often leave them behind when they're done – to be picked up and read by someone else.
• Many newsweeklies are targeted to hip, youngish readers who rarely look at daily newspapers.
• An ad in a weekly offers many of the same characteristics as a newspaper ad, at rates that are usually considerably lower than those of the local newspaper.

Disadvantages

• The flip side of newsweeklies' less-strict ad acceptance policy is that the environment created by certain types of ads may not be suitable for mainstream businesses or products.
• The majority of these publications are produced only once a week – and that may not be often enough to achieve sufficient message frequency.
• Some weeklies are produced as cost-effectively as possible, resulting in a “cheap” look that may affect consumer perception of the quality of product, business, or service being promoted.
• Most weeklies rely completely on advertising for revenue, so the typical issue is crammed with ads, often clustered together in groups. This practice can make it difficult for a given ad to stand out.