Newspaper sites partner with Yahoo

Cory Bergman November 19th, 2006

Seven media groups have signed a wide-ranging deal with Yahoo to share content, advertising and revenue. MediaNews, Hearst, Scripps, Belo, Journal Register, Lee and Cox are included in the partnership, representing 176 daily papers. “This is a transformational deal for the newspaper industry,” said William Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group. “This relationship will significantly extend our local assets to a much wider audience, and gives us the technology required to fulfill the growing demands of advertisers and consumers.” In the first phase of the deal, newspapers will sell job postings on HotJobs, as well as use HotJobs’ technology to run their own career ads. Then during the next year, the partnership will be extended as newspapers begin displaying their stories and local ads on Yahoo’s online network. Yahoo, in turn, will make available local event listings, maps, search technology and other content and tools on the newspapers’ sites. In a nutshell: newspapers gain a larger and younger audience, and Yahoo expands its ad network into local markets. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal comes on the heels of Google’s announcement that it will use its technology to sell ads in the print editions of 50 newspapers. It’s also interesting to note that this partnership will be a big shot in the arm for participating newspaper sites on the distribution, sales and technology front, which adds up to more competition for local TV sites. (Full disclosure: I work for a Belo TV property.) Update: Listen to the announcement here, as well a PDF presentation with more details here. Press release follows below…

PRESS RELEASE — In another step towards creating the most comprehensive advertising network in the online industry, Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) today announced a strategic partnership with more than 150 daily U.S. newspapers to deliver search, graphical and classified advertising to consumers in the communities where they live and work. Beginning with recruitment advertising, the newspapers and Yahoo! HotJobs are bringing one of the largest online audiences, targeting capabilities, local expertise and advertising power to recruiters. In addition, the consortium plans to work together to provide search, content, and local applications across the newspapers’ Web sites.

Adding to Yahoo!’s list of high-quality partners across its search, graphical and classified advertising networks, such as eBay and Right Media, members of the newly formed consortium include: Belo Corp.; Cox Newspapers Inc.; Hearst Newspapers; Journal Register Company; Lee Enterprises, Incorporated; MediaNews Group; and, The E.W. Scripps Company. The newspapers in this consortium reach 38 states, and include major market dailies such as the San Francisco Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Houston Chronicle, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, San Jose Mercury-News, New Haven Register and the Commercial Appeal (Memphis).

“This announcement is consistent with our strategy to establish relationships that advance Yahoo!’s objective of securing leading positions where we see the biggest prospects for growth,” said Terry Semel, chairman and chief executive officer, Yahoo! Inc. “We believe the local segment is largely untapped and provides significant opportunities to expand audience engagement and subsequently grow local advertising. With our powerful reach, content, technology, local tools and advertising capabilities, Yahoo! is uniquely positioned to seize these opportunities, especially as we continue to enhance our search monetization efforts and to extend our leadership position in graphical advertising.”

The companies have embarked upon a wide-ranging relationship unique in the newspaper industry in its combined scope. It will leverage the complementary strengths of the newspaper consortium and Yahoo! to deliver significant localized content and advertising opportunities to their customers.

Yahoo! and the consortium have initiated plans to work together in the following capacities:

Advertising: Use Yahoo!’s technology platform to sell online advertising for the newspapers’ Web sites.

Search: Use Yahoo!’s search monetization functionality on newspaper Web sites, such as Web search, downloads of the Yahoo! toolbar and sponsored search.

Local: Offer Yahoo!’s local products such as Yahoo! Local listings, Yahoo! Maps and Event Listings on the newspaper Web sites.

Content: Use Yahoo!’s extensive network to distribute the newspapers’ content in areas such as Yahoo! Search results, Yahoo! News and other content verticals.

“This is a transformational deal for the newspaper industry,” said William Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group, and Victor F. Ganzi, president & CEO of Hearst Corporation, in a joint statement. “This relationship will significantly extend our local assets to a much wider audience, and gives us the technology required to fulfill the growing demands of advertisers and consumers.” MediaNews Group and Hearst were founders of the consortium along with Belo, Lee and Scripps. The consortium continues to recruit other newspapers to join.

The local online advertising opportunity is significant. According to Bank of America, the U.S. online advertising segment is predicted to grow from an estimated $3.4 billion in 2006 to an estimated $12.4 billion by 2010. And, according to the Kelsey Group, 35 percent of all online searches are local, with volume expected to increase from more than 20 billion searches in the next year to more than 30 billion searches by 2009.

First Implementation to Create a Powerful Jobs Network

The first element of the partnership to be implemented will provide advertisers who list jobs in any of the consortium’s newspapers the ability to also post their jobs on Yahoo! HotJobs (www.hotjobs.com) and throughout the Yahoo! network. Advertisers will be able to use contextual, streaming and interactive media to engage candidates and can also leverage RSS feeds, job search agents, newsletters and job recommendation engine results. The arrangement will create a powerful local and national jobs network and product suite, enabling recruitment advertisers to reach a larger, more diverse candidate pool of both active and passive job seekers.

In addition, all of the newspapers’ online career sections will be powered by Yahoo! HotJobs and co-branded between Yahoo! and the local newspaper. Belo Corp. and MediaNews Group, two of the newspaper companies included in this consortium, have been Yahoo! HotJobs partners since 2005.

“We believe that this arrangement is a potential game changer for Yahoo! HotJobs, providing an enormous database of additional job listings and giving local newspapers a dramatically larger audience,” said Hilary Schneider, senior vice president of marketplaces for Yahoo!.

“This partnership will give recruiters exactly what they need to find the best candidates, combining Yahoo!’s extensive job seeker reach and world-class targeting technologies with the newspapers’ local strength and readership, making us a leader in most of these territories,” said Dan Finnigan, senior vice president for Yahoo! HotJobs.

Conference Call:

The newspaper consortium will host a conference call and Webcast, with participation from Yahoo! executives, at 1:00 p.m. EST today. To access the listen-only conference line, dial 1-866-812-0403. A live Webcast of the conference call, together with a presentation, can be accessed through the Belo Web site at (www.belo.com/invest). Following the conclusion of the conference call and Webcast, a replay will be archived on the websites of Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com), Belo (www.belo.com/invest), Journal Register (www.journalregister.com), Lee (www.lee.net), Media General (www.mediageneral.com/investor) and Scripps (www.scripps.com) beginning at 6:15 p.m. EST on November 20 until 11:59 p.m. on November 27.