I would say that most newspapers around the world are not suffering because they lost out on worldwide advertising. Newspapers have lost touch with the communities they used to serve so well.  If anything, Newspapers need to be developing their own LOCAL advertising platform.  I often see new 3rd party applications being utilized by newspapers for a share of their revenue stream and I wonder what the long-term implications are to the owners’ equity.

Yahoo also hopes the new platform will help the ailing newspaper industry, by transforming poorly performing remnant advertising into higher performing revenue streams. “We touch more users around the world than any publisher could dream to do,” says John Slade, Yahoo’s Vice President of Product Management.
It could be good for newspapers. “We sell lots of online ads at low rates,” says William Dean Singleton, Vice Chairman and CEO of MediaNews Group, whose San Jose Mercury News is a partner in the new launch. Wired

Forbes titled their piece on Yahoo’s new ad platform “Fanfare and Hyperbole“, an excerpt: “what my friend Jerry Yang is about to share with you will rock the media world in the way that radio and TV did”.  Right, you can see where they got their headline.

I am a local business owner. I want to advertise my services in a high profile setting where I get the highest return on my investment. In order to increase my exposure and get my name out there, I also want to advertise where a lot of eyeballs may come across my ad. In the first instance I advertise through Google and Yahoo for keyword relevancy. I also advertise in trade publications where the audience itself is targeted to my services. Lastly I would like to advertise in a few local newspapers to increase my exposure to the community. The problem is that newspaper advertising is cost prohibitive and inconvenient. I have to call one number for print and another for online. These people do not, can not, communicate and so they cannot answer my entire newspaper advertising questions.

The newspaper ad above, by the way, would cost about $1800 and besides the inclusion in two area newspapers, I have no idea where or in what context the ads will be displayed or even for how long.  The above image is all I am supplied with in making my decision to buy the ad.  Why does it look so grainy? This is awful.

Related posts:

1. Belo Spins Off Newspapers as Murdoch Consolidates
2. 2007 NAA Mid-Year Media Review: Newspapers Report Audience Up, Circulation Down . Internet Continues Growing Strongly.
3. How oh How can I advertise? Let me count the ways….