WPNI Chief Eyes Growth Opportunities
- by February 10, 2004
The latest online publisher to request registration information is the Washington Post Co.'s Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive online unit. Until recently, it required visitors to enter only their age, gender, and zip code. Now, consumers are required to enter their job function--job title, company size, and industry.
Why now? "It's been an evolution [for us]--we wanted to test and make sure that this was something acceptable to our users, and we find that in the first quarter we tend to have a little more flexibility with our inventory," said Caroline Little, CEO and publisher-Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. Little says that the job data will help WPNI attract more premium advertisers--the kinds that want to reach business decision makers.
Little, who recently succeeded Christopher Schroeder in the CEO-publisher role, says that WPNI's national and local advertising base grew nearly 60 percent in 2003. That growth excludes display advertising in such segments as autos, jobs, and real estate. WPNI has focused during the last year or so on attracting national advertisers.
Little says the biggest growth opportunities are in the travel, technology, and health/pharmaceutical sectors. Washingtonpost.com attracted 5.1 million unique visitors in December, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. WPNI revenue, including washingtonpost.com, grew 30 percent to $46.9 million in 2003 from $35.9 million in 2002.
WPNI also expects to lure its fair share of online political advertisers in this presidential election year. "There's been a lot of interest in online political advertising and we've seen the numbers grow, but we're coming from a very, very small base," Little adds. Editorially, WPNI has hosted a series of live conversations with the candidates.
Little segues into the top post having worked closely with Schroeder during his four-year tenure as publisher. She was COO since 2000, and president since early 2003.
Schroeder was recently named VP of strategy for the Washington Post Co., advising Chairman Donald Graham on Internet-related issues, including the evolution of broadband and online advertising issues. Schroeder, who was chairman of the Online Publishers Association (the OPA has yet to name his successor), expects to continue evangelizing Internet issues, but will be spending most of his time at large, focusing on Internet trends.
"There are some tremendously exciting things happening in the broadband world overall, in Asia and in other parts of the world," Schroeder said, adding: "I'll be looking at how people's behaviors will evolve, their interactions with handheld devices, interactions with the Web, and content... I'll be thinking about our businesses and how we should be growing them."
Schroeder is bullish about online advertising and publishing, but he's also worried: "I'm very concerned that in an era of 24-hour news cycles that good-quality, in-depth journalism continues to be read. I also think it's very, very important that we work with our advertising client partners to meet their needs as they rework their plans because of PVRs (personal video recorders)--that we're not simply throwing up traditional advertising online."
On Little's agenda--forming an OPA task force on the Can-Spam issue: "I don't think publishers were considered in that [the legislation] at all." She will also assess inventory management issues. Like Schroeder, Little is an evangelist for the medium: "I think the industry did not do a very good job five years ago explaining the value of content publishing sites. We've seen that change dramatically, but there's a ways to go," she said.
