Could I love a newspaper again?

I had a two-and-a-half hour interview in Windsor, NS yesterday for a copy editor position. It's a brand-new daily newspaper, and they're looking for someone who has some idea what the hell a newspaper is supposed to read and look like.
I don't think I'd had that much newspaper-based fun in ages. We tore that paper apart (they've only been publishing since August or something) and I told them that columns and their widths had to have some consistency, photos had to have a focal point (or, at least, something interesting in them) and that hairlines separate news stories and ads quite well. I also talked about things that I only had a passing comprehension of, like selling ads in standardized sizes, so that you don't have to fuck up the layout when an ad goes halfway through a column.
The managing and news editor sort of gasped, then looked at each other, and said something to the effect that they were unable to slay the mighty dragon that is their advertising manager. There were 4 ads in the whole paper, and the most expensive one, on the back page, looked like it printed at about 12 dpi. When they went to the ad manager about this, he said "So?"
This scares me. Editorially, the paper was fairly clean and well written, despite the fact that there's no news in the area ever. But with a garbage-truck of an ad department, how long can a daily newspaper last?
But I'm still excited about working there. The paper's in a cute little town, and the people who interviewed me were funny and competent, if not a little lost and frustrated. I think I'd be a fun place to work, even if it didn't last forever. Hopefully, they call me back.