During the last two decades in Ethiopia a daily private newspaper has not evolved exceptrnEletawi Addis (Addis Daily) which lasted practically for a year. The purpose of this studyrnis to find an economic explanation as to why daily private newspapers fail to evolve inrnEthiopia. Commodification, an entry-point in the study of a political economy ofrncommunication dictates the research.rnA decade being the dividing line, two newspapers each are randomly selected from thernfirst and the second decade, and another newspaper, unlike other newspapers which hasrneither stayed for the longest years or remained in the market without interruption fromrnentry-point to the present is part of the study. Hence, the advertising content, the motivesrnand the commercialization throughout the years in the selected five newspapers has beenrnstudied from the first year of operation with two years interval till the exit years for therntwo newspapers of the first decade and till 2009/10 for the rest three. A qualitative indepthrninterview has also been conducted with advertising and marketing departmentrnheads and editors-in-chief in order to add to the richness of the data available from thernquantitative content analysis.rnIt has been found out that advertising following an increase in the early years hasrndecreased towards the end of the first decade while in the second decade advertising hasrnsteadily increased in all the three newspapers. It should be noted that in all the fivernnewspapers with the increasing advertising, news element has always been in arndecreasing trend both in the first and second decade. This is a clear indication that thernprivate weekly press throughout the years rather than providing news storiesrnprogressively to the public, their concern has shifted to advertising and contents that arernnot truly news such as entertainment and opinion. Hence, it could be concluded thatrnthough the private press beginning from the early years of existence has quicklyrnfamiliarized itself with commodification, advertising has remained both a challenge as inrnthe case of Tobiya, Tomar, and Mesenazeriya and a prospect for Reporter and EthiornChannel. In general, advertising that challenged the private newspaper market hasrnsignificantly contributed for a daily not to evolve.