Is Yahoo A ‘Frenemy’ For Newspapers? Hearst Cites Encroachment
While a number of Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Newspaper Consortium members have praised the company for helping boost ad revenues and audience reach, Hearst Newspapers is telling Forbes that it’s concerned that Yahoo’s latest display ad product could actually be competition. This week, Yahoo introduced My Display Ads, a self-serve ad product aimed at small- to mid-size marketers, which newspapers regard as their lifeblood. Stephen Weis, Hearst Newspapers’ VP for digital sales, says that his company’s sales team has already found itself competing with Yahoo for some of the same advertisers, although the two have a contractual agreement that prevents Yahoo from selling to certain of Hearst’s advertisers. Yahoo’s view is that advertisers aren’t going to spend money online in just one place (i.e. local online newspapers)– so why shoudn’t Yahoo grab a piece of the pie as well?
In an email exchange with Mike Silver, who is executive director of the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, he rejected the notion that the company is giving with one hand and taking with the other. Silver, it should be noted, represents the newspaper members and does not work for Yahoo. He said that view “seems to describe a world in which local advertisers wouldn
You would think Yahoo might point out that those buying targeted ads into their network would be placing ads into the newspaper's web sites, too. But, then, maybe the newspapers will not get that many ads.
I've looked into the new system for local ads. This legit gripe from the newspapers could be addressedâand the product improved for marketers (but not Yahoo)âif the UI provided a targeting option that included "only use local Yahoo newspaper network" and "exclude local Yahoo newspaper network."
From what I have seen, Heart is right. They have a problem.