Since a new online audience for local newspapers has emerged during the last years, in response to the growth of the Internet, we need to know who they are, what their reading habits are, and what their view on emerging technologies are, to be able to design good online newspapers. We have conducted a study using online questionnaires at three local online newspapers in three different countries: Sweden, Slovakia and Spain. The objective of this paper is to describe the differences and similarities between the three countries regarding audience profiles, scenarios of use, opinions of current and future issues and to discuss design implications.