Newspapers Team Up For Online Ad Network

"Traditionally print newspaper companies have not worked well together to sell national ads in print," says Jack Williams, president of Gannett Digital (via Wall Street Journal). "We intend to sell Internet advertising differently."

According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune will offer national advertisers a one-stop-shop to buy online ads for newspaper websites. The deal has not been finalized yet.

Called the Open Network, it is intended to attract big brands like automakers and phone companies with a national audience to local papers. Most national advertisers have purchased ads through the big online portals – Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft – in the past. This network could change that. Reports have each of the publishers devoting approximately 10% of their online ad inventory to the network.

Yahoo and seven other publishers have announced plans to build a similar network, and Google has reported great results from its newspaper ad network.

Through September 2006, online advertising revenue, including search ads, rose to $12.1 billion (a 35% increase). During the same time, local newspaper ad revenues dropped to $17.5 billion (a 4% decrease) according to TNS Media Intelligence.

Tags: advertising network, newspaper advertising, newspaper revenue, online advertising