Denver-based ap and a consortium of a dozen other newspaper publishers are expected to unveil new details and announce a final agreement on a broad partnership with Internet search giant Yahoo Inc. as early as today.
The partnership, first announced in November, is intended to help the newspapers gain a larger chunk of the growing online advertising industry and find firmer footing in a media and advertising landscape upended by the Internet.
To do that, the newspapers plan to roll out a slew of initiatives during the next 18 months. Chief among them is a common online platform that will enable national companies to purchase online advertising across dozens of newspaper websites.
The deal, spearheaded by William Dean Singleton, ap vice chairman and chief executive, includes some of the nation’s largest newspaper companies. MediaNews is the nation’s fourth-largest newspaper publisher and owner of The Denver Post.
Other members include Cox Newspapers Inc. of Atlanta; Hearst Corp. of New York; and E.W. Scripps Co., the Cincinnati- based owner of the Rocky Mountain News.
The consortium is also expected to announce the inclusion of McClatchy Co., the nation’s third-largest newspaper publisher. McClatchy, based in Sacramento, Calif., had been involved in an online-advertising partnership with Tribune Co. and Gannett Co., the nation’s largest newspaper publisher.
The deal with Yahoo is important for the long-term health of its newspaper partners, as the booming local online advertising market is expected to grow from $3.4 billion in 2006 to about $12.4 billion by 2010, according to an analysis by Bank of America.
Yet it’s unclear how quickly the partnership will deliver significant revenue for any of its participants, said Ed Atorino, an analyst in New York with Benchmark Co.
“We won’t know how much revenue will be generated for several years,” Atorino said.
Other aspects of the deal include incorporating a Yahoo- branded Internet search function on the newspapers’ websites; offering Yahoo products such as local listings, maps and events on the newspapers’ websites; and using Yahoo’s network to distribute the newspapers’ content – including archives.
McClatchy’s decision to join the consortium working with Yahoo could clear the way for Tribune and Gannett to also consider signing on, said Colby Atwood, president of Borrell Associates, a media consultancy based in Portsmouth, Va.
“All the other players will look at this,” Atwood said of McClatchy’s decision. “When there is a lot of turbulence in an industry, it takes a while for a winner to emerge.”
Tim Landon, president of Tribune Interactive, said in an e-mail statement sent to Bloomberg News that it and Gannett would continue pursuing their own online advertising platform.
“Gannett and Tribune intend to move forward,” Landon said, according to Bloomberg. “We plan to build an ad network open to all newspapers where each participates on an entirely equal basis with no exclusive territories of preferential terms.”
An official for McClatchy declined to comment Friday.
Staff writer Will Shanley can be reached at 303-954-1260 or wshanley@denverpost.com.
