Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor
Four of the largest media companies have formed a new online ad-sales network. The alliance marks the second formal partnership in the newspaper industry and competes with Yahoo's newspaper consortium.
Dubbed quadrantONE, the network includes newspaper and Web-site publishers Tribune, Gannett, Hearst and The New York Times.
Dana Hayes, interim CEO of quadrantONE, said aggregating the Web audiences of the media companies gives national advertisers access to tens of millions of unique visitors in the country's top markets.
Newspaper Network Claims Industry First
According to Nielsen Online data, the network reaches nearly 50 million unique visitors each month, and covers 27 out of the top 30 markets. QuadrantONE promises advertisers the capability to consistently deliver their brands and messages on a national scale through advertising with the major newspaper and broadcasting sites.
"When faced with a growing number of fragmented ad-media options, particularly on the Web, advertisers are looking for new opportunities and innovative models providing a valuable, measurable consumer experience," said Chris Boothe, president and chief activation officer at Starcom USA. Starcom handles media planning and buying for some of the world's biggest brands.
"QuadrantONE steps up to the challenge of the new media future, and on behalf of our advertisers, we appreciate that it provides hyperlocalized opportunities for brand impact that resonate with targeted audiences," he said.
What About Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium?
QuadrantOne will compete head-on with Yahoo. In fact, some of the members of Yahoo's consortium are also part of quadrantOne. Yahoo's consortium takes a cross-media approach to advertising online and offline. Yahoo has more than 260 publications across 44 states with a combined Sunday circulation of 18.5 million.
Yahoo's publishing partnerships create a dual-platform buying opportunity for local advertisers with the combination of local newspaper and local Yahoo online audiences. Yahoo's sales force may sell newspaper inventory to their portfolio of national advertisers, and newspapers' sales forces may sell Yahoo's local online inventory to local advertisers.
Yahoo's search functionality runs across hundreds of newspaper Web sites and is exposed to more than 50 million users on a monthly basis. And newspaper content is fully integrated within local news modules and delivered to Yahoo users interested in local news, sports, finance and other content.
Analyst: Newspapers Want Control
"Yahoo brought some additional revenue to newspapers and gave them a story to tell, but they don't control Yahoo. Newspapers were fearful at the time of tying themselves to Yahoo's future and we see now that Yahoo is in turmoil," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence.
Sterling said the newspapers involved in quadrantOne have been planning the deal for many months as a way to regain some control over advertising. However, he continued, it is not clear that this consortium is going to perform better for the newspapers than Yahoo or online local ad firms like Centro.
"Local newspapers are not typically getting national ad dollars on their Web like they did with print," Sterling said. "They are not in the top tier of sites these national advertisers buy on because they don't have the reach. The newspapers are trying to solve that problem."
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