Friday, May 02, 2008

Newspapers Own Local Market

Local newpapers are dominating the local advertising scene, but they have yet to capitalize on video ads. According to Borrell Associates, newspaper-owned Web sites earned more than $2 billion in local online advertising revenue in 2007 and controlled 27 percent of the market.

Local yellow pages came in second with 9 percent, while radio captured just 2.1 percent, highlighting just how fractured the local market is. Local video advertising, generated $363 million in revenue 2007, and is expected to generate $1.2 billion in 2008.

When you put these two facts together the next steps to take should be obvious. Local newspapers should focus on video from wire services and local TV stations to obtain the video needed to run against video ads. So far the local papers haven't capitalized on video from Reuters and AP or their local TV counterparts, who currently are barely on the local ad revenue radar. Working together and sharing the revenue will benefit all.

The increase in newspaper sales are good news for sales people. Newspapers have doubled their online sales staff in the past 3 years.

By John Gartner at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)

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