Newspapers Join Forces To Sell Online Ads: quadrantONE
February 15, 2008 – 8:41 pmToday The Tribune Company, the Gannett Company, Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company all announced a joint venture to sell a portion of their online ad space through quadrantONE. Based in Chicago, this new group will allow for national advertisers to place ads on local sites apparently with ease.
The new venture will reach about 50 million unique visitors a month in 27 of the top 30 DMA markets (Nielson). The joint deal will allow for greater reach by media buyers while still allowing the newspapers to control their inventory. It is widely know that organizations such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft had been trying to secure this local inventory to sell premium ads themselves.
So why did this deal go through?
For those that have dealt with these organizations, buying online media was far more challenging than it should have been. Much of the current inventory priced competitively was brokered. Additionally, it was exceptionally difficult to get competitive rates working direct. Clearly the traditional newspaper CPM rate branded methodology spilled into the online sales rates. The problem was, the rates were unrealistic. Had the rates been reflective of the inventory value and priced appropriately, it would have sold.
There are of course some specific divisions of these larger parent corporations that are more knowledgeable than others, but as a whole these organizations definitely did not understand the specific needs of online advertisers.
With the joint venture and sole focus of online, one can hope for greater accountability and competitive pricing to come. Stay tuned to similar joint ventures on the online radio space.
You must be logged in to post a comment.