• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, May 10, 2005

In an effort to compete with the Internet's biggest general news portals, 147 smaller online news sites--including 10 owned by ABC--have banded together with broadband video aggregator WorldNow to create a massive, "unwired" online advertising network.

WorldNow and ABC will sell inventory for the new initiative, dubbed "Local Media Network," which will include sites owned by other major television networks, said John Watkins, president of national television sales of the ABC-owned stations. He added that the ABC sites in the network will be in different local markets than those owned by the other television networks.

Watkins said the hope is that aggregating audiences in one network will allow the sales team to offer advertisers the same reach that they get on the largest online news sites. "This gets us up in the ballpark of CNN and MSNBC and Yahoo! News," Watkins said. Together, the network is expected to reach 20 million unique visitors monthly.

Allison Bodenmann, executive vice president of national sales for WorldNow, added that available ad units include streaming video, rich media, banners, and skyscrapers. Advertisers on board so far include MasterCard, Delta Airlines, Verizon, and Vonage, said Bodenmann. Of that group, Vonage presently intends to run streaming video ads.

Advertisers will be able to run different creative units in different markets with the same national media buy, Bodenmann said. For instance, she said, a manufacturer could do a branding campaign in one city and promote a store opening in another.

She added that the deal should help local networks take advantage of the growth of high-speed Internet access. "The advent of broadband," she said, "has given the news stations a real opportunity to monetize the on-air programming."