Filed under: Deals, Competitive strategy, Yahoo! (YHOO), New York Times’A’ (NYT), Gannett Co (GCI)
Several large publishers will set up a joint ad sales operation in the hopes of getting more revenue for their on the web businesses. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Gannett (NYSE: GCI)., Hearst Corp., the New York Times NYSE: NYT). and Tribune Co. are setting up the network as a stand-alone company called quadrantOne.”
The new operation will have access to funding from the four companies and will cover 120 newspaper websites with a combined 50 million very special users. The new firm won’t sell ads in the New York Times and USA This day which already have huge on the web sales forces.
The venture will likely be a failure. By holding out the two most prized newspaper websites and selling smaller papers to advertisers the quadrantOne is likely to do no superior than the unit Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) has set-up to sell newspaper ads. While newspaper websites are attracting more readers as people moves away from print products, ad agencies can already purchase inventory from these properties with ease.
The new company may offer “one stop shopping” for online newspaper ad inventory, but it is not inventory that advertisers really want.
Douglas A.. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
Entries (RSS)