• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, November 20, 2007

Seeking to sustain online revenue growth, newspaper publishers have struck a series of new deals to expand the reach of their online content and classified businesses.

Most recently, 282 newspapers entered into an agreement with Zillow.com, allowing the online real-estate site to share their listings last week, followed by the announcement Monday that 17 newspapers are joining Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium.

The Zillow deal involves 11 newspaper publishers, including big players like EW Scripps, Lee Enterprises, Hearst Newspapers and Media General. It allows people placing online real-estate listings at newspaper Web sites to display the ads on Zillow as well, increasing their exposure. Plus, Zillow will benefit from a larger number of listings overall. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Last week's announcement from Yahoo brought the Columbia Dispatch as well as 16 regional newspapers owned by the New York Times Company into Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium, which shares content and advertising. As part of the deal, Yahoo HotJobs allows newspapers to place classified job listings at a wholesale rate. With the additions, the consortium now has a total of 415 daily newspaper members.

Ken Doctor, an analyst with Outsell, Inc., said the deals are part of a broader trend that has newspapers moving beyond their "destination" strategies: "They realize that some readers and buyers will come to their own newspaper sites, but many others are cruising the Web, looking for home values, checking out Yahoo Finance, searching for football scores."

Doctor summarized the strategy as an aggressive one: "It's about going out to where the eyeballs are, not just waiting for the eyeballs to come to them."