More Newspapers Join QuadrantOne National Web Advertising Scheme

Philip Stone March 25, 2008

The idea of newspaper groups banding together in a consortium to sell prime display advertising on their web sites is catching on with those newspapers that have been partnering with Yahoo on a display and classified advertising scheme now also joining the QuadrantOne scheme. The scheme, announced in February, has yet to run ads.

The idea is that newspapers and TV sites within the scheme will devote some prime real estate on their web sites to the scheme. It’s basically a one phone call idea – an advertiser makes one call to place a campaign across the network.

“This is the first step for the industry to come together and work on the national advertiser area as a unified front,” said Christian Hendricks, McClatchy VP for interactive media and a member of the Yahoo group and a new QuadrantOne partner.

With the likes of AH Belo, McClatchy, Media General, Morris Communications, EW Scripps, and Cox Communications joining QuadrantOne that was founded by Gannett, Hearst, The New York Times Company, and Tribune, the consortium now offers138 web sites representing some 250 newspapers. The big question there is why only 138 sites – obviously some sites are being held back.

The thinking behind QuadrantOne is that if money is leaving print and going to the Internet then newspapers should band together to recapture as much as possible of that lost print spend and ensure it gets spent on their web sites.

The Yahoo members say their deal with Yahoo is not exclusive, allowing them to enter into QuadrantOne, too. Under the Yahoo umbrella the newspapers run Yahoo’s HotJobs recruitment listings, use the Yahoo search tool, and provide Yahoo with an inventory of display ad space it sells to national advertisers and they provide Yahoo with inventory for its local advertisers.

But as was pointed out last month when QuadrantOne was announced, fine as this new service is for newspaper web sites, what newspapers really need is such a system for national print advertising which, of course, is worth far more than web advertising. National advertisers and ad agencies have long complained of the difficulty of launching national campaigns when it takes hundreds of phone calls to individual newspapers to get the job done because everyone has different specifications.