Newspaper Consortium Strikes Deal With QuadrantOne

The Newspaper Consortium, a group of 26 newspaper publishers, has agreed to offer online ad space on a consistent basis to quadrantONE, the online ad sales network launched last month by Gannett Co., Hearst Corp., The New York Times Co., and Tribune Co.

QuadrantONE is owned by its four founding companies, but has actively sought affiliate partners to create a larger pool of online ad inventory for national advertisers.

"By aggregating the online audiences of the consortium's participating media companies, we expand our reach significantly, and enable large national advertisers to reach tens of millions of additional unique visitors in the country's top markets," said Dana Hayes, interim CEO of quadrantONE.

Of the consortium's 425 newspaper sites, 138 are being made available to quadrantOne immediately, while more are expected to be added in the future. The initial boost nearly doubles the size of the quadrantOne network to about 250 newspapers.

The Newspaper Consortium--made up of McClatchy Co., A.H. Belo Corp., Cox Com., E.W. Scripps Co., and Media General Inc., among others--was formed to create a partnership with Yahoo in the areas of recruitment, search, content and the cross-selling of advertising.

"Over the last year, our partnership with Yahoo has driven significant employment revenue for many of our members and set the stage for a continuing series of content and sales initiatives," said Michael Romaner, president of Morris Communications' Morris DigitalWorks and co-chair of the consortium's steering committee.

QuadrantONE now reaches over 20 major markets and about a dozen smaller ones, with a network of newspaper and broadcast sites representing over 70 million unique monthly visitors.

To simplify the buying process for large brand advertisers, QuadrantONE is creating a centralized pool of standardized ad units from newspapers nationwide, which can then be sold off in blocks.

The National Newspaper Network, the ad network created by the newspaper industry to sell national advertising in local papers and their Web sites to national advertisers, said it plans to work closely with quadrantONE in the future.

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