The (New York) Times to Sell Display Ads on the Front Page

[UpInArms]

Source: New York Times

In its latest concession to the worst revenue slide since the Depression, The New York Times has begun selling display advertising on its front page, a step that has become increasingly common across the newspaper industry.

The first such ad, appearing Monday in color, was bought by CBS. The ad, two-and-a-half inches high, lies horizontally across the bottom of the front page, below the news articles and a brief summary of some articles in the paper. In a statement, the paper said such ads would be placed “below the fold” — that is, on the lower half of the page.

In the past, The Times has printed an occasional front-page classified ad — two or three lines of text at the bottom of the page. And a few years ago it began selling display ads — which are much larger and can combine images and text — on the front pages of sections inside the paper.

But The Times did not sell displays on the first page of the first section, a move regarded by traditionalists as a commercial incursion into the most important news space in the paper.

Most major American papers sell front-page display ads, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times, but some others, including The Washington Post, do not.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/business/media/05times.html

[NJCher]

1. sad

Cher

[Kelvin Mace]

2. And the death knell of the old media

continues to sound, while the media continues to cling to the past.

The time to evolve was over a decade ago, when newspapers scoffed at the idea that the internet would change everything.

Reminds me of a conversation I had with a Compugraphic salesman I had in 1987. Compugraphic sold phototypesetting equipment for magazine/newspaper layout. We were discussing the second generation HP LaserJets and I asked him what his company was going to do about laser printers and desktop publishing.

At the time, the system we used cost a quarter of a million dollars, could only handle text and basic horizontal/vertical lines. It also required expensive chemistry making each page of layout (a magazine) cost $1.50, versus a dime a page for the HP.

He assured me that lasers and PCs could NEVER replace dedicated photodigital typesetting, and that people would never accept the lower resolution (300 dpi vs 2400 dpi). I explained that in our case and in the case of newspapers, since we were printing on newsprint, resolutions differences such as that were not noticeable to the average punter, and I hope he had another sales job lined up.

A year later the company was bought out by a German company, which began phasing out of the "paste-up" market.

[NashVegas]

10. What's Happening to Print News Outlets Is the Result of Two Things

1. Corporate consolidation. Tina Brown wrote an excellent column about how the wrong people are getting pink slipped in the modern era, but it started before the internet. We have been discussing it here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4751039

2. The web's model rewards super-specialized content providers over 1-stop shops.


The drive for over-specialization in this modern age is going to be the death of us all, in the long run.

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. I hate to see that happening.

It cheapens the whole newspaper.

[KittyWampus]

4. I thought putting Kristol on the editorial page cheapened the paper. Especially since he's had to

recant and issue corrections repeatedly.

[Botany]

5. Judy Miller sold the paper out a long time ago

Cheney and Libby would plant a story w/ Miller and then Cheney would
quote the same stories as proof of the need to have a war in Iraq.

[SpiralHawk]

6. CBS ad: "We're irrelevant, too."

"Ever since we became a corporate propaganda spigot, the American people have lost trust in the Homelander Crapola we catapult at them. America recognizes that we long ago stopped serving the people or the truth, and Assumed the Position for Homelander propaganda. Smirk."

- CBS ad

[Gidney N Cloyd]

7. The Chicago Trib announced it was going to do that awhile back but >>>

>>> but I haven't noticed them actually doing it lately.

Off-topic a bit but the Trib's most recent rehab/new look is a complete disaster. I've been subscribing for 25 years and the paper is just impossible to navigate and read now.

[nyc 4 Biden]

8. And so it begins.

I just had to be the first to use this ridiculous subject line. :hi:

I regards to the story, I don't like the ads on the front page. To improve sales, I think NYT should make a smaller version of the paper in tabloid or compact form and call it the commuter. Unless you are an origami expert, the current version is too bulky to read on the bus or the train.

[Doctor_J]

9. Prolonging the inevitable

RIP Big Media

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Newspapers following tv ad placements.

As I lamented this weekend in apost, the "iformercials" that used to play from 1 am to 7 am on tv
are now being played during the day on major networks , instead of actual tv shows.
this Sat. afternoon, ABC carried informercials for a few hours, No other programming.

Now newspapers. And those ads will become more numerous and bigger.

They are eliminating the "middle man" : entertaintment and news.

Nothing says sheeple as much as moves like this.

[Hekate]

12. The Los Angeles Times has been doing this for awhile. Now they've started prominent "human interest"

... stories on the front page. The paper has gotten much thinner...

Really, really sad.

Hekate

[AndyTiedye]

13. If They'd Actually Report the News, I'd subscribe

Unfortunately, they don't report a lot of the really important news.
I have to find it on sites like this one.

[adam_hartung]

14. Too little too late

Talk about too little too late - running ads on the front page won't save the P&Ls of major newspapers - including the New York Times. People want news on the web, on their phones and are increasingly unwilling to wait on delayed news from a newspaper. Unless the New York Times Company changes its strategy fast, it will soon follow Tribune Company into bankruptcy. Read more at http://www.ThePhoenixPrinciple.com

[Irreverend IX]

15. Newspapers returning to their origins...

Newspapers started out as advertising brochures, kind of like today's coupon books, with news articles inside them to give people a reason to pick them up. When competition between papers intensified, they started running news on the front page, and before long the front pages were all news and no one would buy a paper with ads on the front page. But I doubt that even this move will save them; Net-based news is much more convenient.

[fla nocount]

16. I'll subscribe for a year if they fire Friedman.

The terms are not negotiable. It's the only deal I'll accept.

Two years if he's stripped of his mustache before he goes.

[LeftHander]

17. Changes name...New York Times to....Big Apple Value Shopper...nt