Newspaper giants Gannett Co., McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co. are in talks to join forces to jointly sell national advertising on their newspaper websites, aiming to make it easier for big advertisers to use newspapers to reach local consumers online.
The talks were first reported Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal.
The proposed partnership comes two months after Media News Group and six other newspaper companies announced a broad partnership with Yahoo, the Internet giant based in Sunnyvale, Calif.
Denver-based MediaNews is the nation’s fourth-largest newspaper publisher and owner of The Denver Post.
Both deals are an indication that newspaper companies continue to search for ways to generate new streams of revenue, said John Morton, an industry analyst.
“This is part of how newspapers plan to exist in the Internet environment,” said Morton, based in Silver Spring, Md.
Morton said the MediaNews deal with Yahoo is broader than the one involving Gannett, the nation’s largest publisher and owner of USA Today. However, because MediaNews and the other papers are partnering with an outside company, the revenue generated must be shared with Yahoo.
The MediaNews partnership will, among other features, allow national advertisers to use Yahoo’s technology to sell advertising on the newspapers’ websites. It will also incorporate a Yahoo-branded Internet search function on the newspapers’ websites.
Staff writer Will Shanley can be reached at 303-954-1260 or wshanley@denverpost.com.
