Media General jumps on Yahoo bandwagon

Cory Bergman December 4th, 2006

Media General is now the eighth newspaper group to partner with Yahoo, joining Hearst, Cox, MediaNews, Belo, Scripps, Journal Register and Lee. That brings the tally to over 200 newspapers in the strategic alliance. Press release…

PRESS RELEASE — Media General, Inc. (NYSE: MEG - News) announced today that it has entered into a strategic alliance with Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO - News), joining the recently announced national consortium of newspaper companies to deliver search, graphical, and classified advertising to consumers in the communities where they live and work. The national alliance now has more than 200 newspapers.

Marshall N. Morton, president and chief executive officer, said, “We are delighted to deepen our relationship with Yahoo!, with whom we have collaborated on HotJobs in Tampa for over a year now. This new opportunity will broaden our total online audience and provide us with enhanced technology to meet the growing needs of recruitment advertisers and job seekers.”

Media General will begin working immediately with Yahoo! to transition the online career sections of its 25 daily newspapers to a Yahoo! HotJobs-driven platform. Once the system becomes fully operational, Media General anticipates that all career-related advertising sold through its daily newspaper Web sites will also be posted on Yahoo! HotJobs for job seekers from across the country to access. The addition of Media General’s daily newspapers to the consortium creates one of the most comprehensive job networks in the country that can leverage one of the largest online audiences, new targeting capabilities and enhanced advertising power for its local recruitment customers.

“We have always offered the most active local marketplace for jobs, and now we can better serve local employers who also want national exposure. We can offer a full array of solutions for employers and job seekers, including local exposure in print and online and national exposure online. We can offer job seekers a full complement of advanced tools, such as resume posting and saved search features,” said Mr. Morton.

Neal F. Fondren, vice president of Media General and president of the Interactive Media Division, said, “Our visitors will benefit the Yahoo! state- of-the-art search and targeting features and user-friendly tools. Advertisers can also use contextual, streaming and interactive media to engage job candidates as well as leverage Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, job search agents, newsletters and a job recommendation engine.”

Other members of the consortium are: Belo Interactive, Inc., Cox Newspapers, Inc., Hearst Communications Inc., Journal Register Company, Lee Enterprises, Inc., MediaNews Group, Inc. and Scripps Howard Publishing, Inc. Together with Media General, they will create a comprehensive network that spans more than 40 states.