Four Newspaper Chains Form Ad Consortium
March 20th, 2008 | by Brad King |Four major newspaper chains and 26 newspaper companies have formed a massive, online advertising network.
The move comes as print revenues have flattened out, local advertising had flatlined for the last two years and keyword and search revenues become the engine for online ad growth. More and more, newspaper chains have been looking to create massive networks to sell national ads across; however, other than the largest four or five, most stand no chance to participate.
From the press release:
This also comes at a time when some are questioning how intelligent it is to have the news divisions in the hands of public companies that are bound by The Street to turn as much profit as possible, damn the problems. With the advertising business in transition, newspapers are under massive pressure to cut costs.
Joining forces — which is problematical from a news perspective — is likely the only way that papers can compete with the top media brands such as Google and Microsoft.
Still, it’s unclear if there will be enough change in HOW newspapers gather and deliver news to maintain the massive audiences. At the end of the day, the modern media company continues massive growth because of search.
