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.
About Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked
Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! seeks to provide online
products and services essential to consumers' lives, and offers a full
range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with
Internet users around the world. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale,
Calif.
About Belo Corp.
Belo Corp. is one of the
nation's largest media companies with a diversified group of
market-leading television, newspaper, cable and interactive media
assets. A Fortune 1000 company with 7,400 employees and $1.5 billion in
annual revenues, Belo operates in some of America's most dynamic
markets in Texas, the Northwest, the Southwest, Rhode Island, and the
Mid-Atlantic. Belo owns 19 television stations, six of which are in the
15 largest U.S. broadcast markets. The Company also owns or operates
seven cable news channels and manages one television station through a
local marketing agreement. Belo's daily newspapers are The Dallas
Morning News, The Providence Journal, The Press-Enterprise (Riverside,
CA) and the Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, TX). The Company also
publishes specialty publications targeting young adults, affluent
populations and the fast-growing Hispanic market, including Quick and
Al Dia in Dallas/Fort Worth, and the d, El D and La Prensa in
Riverside. Belo operates more
than 30 Web sites associated with its operating companies. Additional information is available at www.belo.com.
About Cox Newspapers Inc. (www.coxnews.com)
Cox
Newspapers includes 17 daily and 26 non-daily newspapers and shoppers.
The company's major metropolitan newspapers include The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, The Palm Beach Post, Austin American-Statesman
and Dayton Daily News. Other operations include Valpak (the nation's
leader in cooperative direct mail advertising) and a one-third
ownership interest in SP Newsprint (with newsprint mills in Dublin,
Georgia, and Newberg, Oregon). Cox Newspapers is a subsidiary of
Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises Inc., one of the nation's leading media
companies and providers of automotive services. Cox's other operating
subsidiaries include Cox Communications Inc. (cable television
distribution, telephone, high-speed Internet access and other advanced
broadband services); Cox Television (television and television sales
rep firms); Cox Radio Inc. ((NYSE:CXR) broadcast radio stations and
interactive Web sites); Manheim Auctions Inc. (vehicle auctions, repair
and certification services and web-based technology
products) and Cox Auto Trader (automotive publications and a majority stake in AutoTrader.com).
About Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation (www.hearst.com)
is one of the nation's largest diversified communications companies.
Its major interests include 12 daily and 20 weekly newspapers,
including the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, and Albany
Times Union; nearly 200 magazines around the world, including
Cosmopolitan and O, The Oprah Magazine; 28 television stations through
Hearst-Argyle Television (NYSE:HTV) which reach a combined 18% of U.S.
viewers; ownership in leading cable networks, including Lifetime,
A&E, The History Channel and ESPN; as well as business publishing,
Internet businesses, television production, newspaper features
distribution and real estate.
About Journal Register Company
Journal
Register Company is a leading U.S. newspaper publishing company.
Journal Register Company owns 27 daily newspapers and 366 non-daily
publications. Journal Register Company currently operates 231
individual Web sites that are affiliated with the Company's daily
newspapers, non-daily publications and its network of employment Web
sites. These Web sites can be accessed at www.journalregister.com.
All of the Company's operations are strategically clustered in seven
geographic areas: Greater Philadelphia; Michigan; Connecticut; Greater
Cleveland; New England; and the Capital-Saratoga and Mid-Hudson regions
of New York.
About Lee Enterprises
Lee Enterprises
(NYSE:LEE) is a premier publisher of local news, information and
advertising in primarily midsize markets, with 51 daily newspapers and
a joint interest in five others, rapidly growing online sites and more
than 300 weekly newspapers and specialty publications in 23 states.
Lee's newspapers have circulation of 1.6 million daily and 1.9 million
Sunday, reaching more than four million readers daily. Lee's online
sites reach more than two million users, and Lee's weekly publications
have distribution of more than 4.5 million households. Lee's newspaper
markets include St. Louis, Mo.; Lincoln, Neb.; Madison, Wis.;
Davenport, Iowa; Billings, Mont.; Bloomington, Ill.; Tucson, Ariz.; and
Napa, Calif. Lee is based in Davenport, Iowa, and its stock is traded
on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LEE. For more
information about Lee Enterprises, please visit www.lee.net.
About MediaNews Group
MediaNews
Group, Inc. is the nation's fourth largest newspaper company, with
headquarters in Denver, Colo. MediaNews Group and its affiliated
companies publish 61 daily newspapers and approximately 120 non-daily
publications in 13 states. In addition, MediaNews Group owns a CBS
affiliate in Anchorage, Alaska and four radio stations in Texas.
MediaNews Group Interactive maintains more than 75 Web sites for its
daily newspapers and an umbrella site, newschoice.com
About The E. W. Scripps Company
The
E. W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP) is a diverse and growing media
enterprise with interests in national cable networks, newspaper
publishing, broadcast television stations, interactive media, and
licensing and syndication. The company's portfolio of media properties
includes: Scripps Networks, with such brands as HGTV, Food Network, DIY
Network, Fine Living and Great American Country; daily and community
newspapers in 18 markets and the Washington-based Scripps Media Center,
home to the Scripps Howard News Service; 10 broadcast TV stations,
including six ABC-affiliated stations, three NBC affiliates and one
independent; Scripps Interactive Media, including leading online search
and comparison shopping services, Shopzilla and uSwitch; and United
Media, a leading worldwide licensing and syndication company that is
the home of PEANUTS, DILBERT and approximately 150 other features and
comics.