Big city newspapers want what they lost to portals like Yahoo! (YHOO) and MSN. They want their advertising back. According to The Chicago Tribune "sources close to the situation said Gannett Co (GCI)., Tribune Co (TRB)., Hearst Corp., Media News Group and Cox Newspapers may band together to form a common ad sales force that could offer national advertisers "one-stop shopping" for ad space on big-market Web sites across the nation.
Yahoo! and Google (GOOG) are also setting up newspaper networks, but if the large chains can get the papers in the ten largest markets to join their alliance, it may deal a blow to the attempts of online companies to sell advertising on behalf of the chains.
Why pay Yahoo! a piece of the action if the online advertisers will deal with papers directly?
Douglas A. McIntyre
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